


Return Backwards to the Past Again 4

by detectivejigsaw



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Also Dipper & Mabel are older, Brief Vomiting, Dipper and Mabel just want to fix things, Ford is an idiot, Gen, Goes even farther back than usual, Homeless Stan Pines, Implied Dipcifica, New Timestuck AU idea, Not for Wendip fans, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Pre-Bill, Probably nothing too graphic, Stan Pines Has Low Self-Esteem, Stan has Trust Issues, Stan is still a sad hurting boy, Time Travel Fix-It, Weirdmageddon sucked, Young Grunkles, and Ford is an angry hurting boy, implied PTSD, not surprisingly, some violence and injuries, sorry - Freeform, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 45,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivejigsaw/pseuds/detectivejigsaw
Summary: It had been a relatively okay day for Stan, up until he got attacked by the crazy girl.And now she and her brother want him to go on a road trip with them because apparently they need his help to...keep the world from being destroyed?Geez, what have they beensmoking?
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Ford Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines/Pacifica Northwest (implied), Ford Pines & Mabel Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 660
Kudos: 310





	1. This first meeting could have gone better

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know.  
> I should finish The Wrong Stan before I start this.  
> On the other hand, I'm almost finished with that one, I just need to get through the big climactic scenes...and also, this story wants to be written. It's been waiting patiently for a long time, it deserves to have a turn.

**Austin, Texas**

**1976**

* * *

It had been a relatively okay day for Stan, up until he got attacked by the crazy girl.

Not a great or happy day by any stretch of the imagination-those didn’t exist for him anymore. But a day when nobody tried to run him out of town, and he actually had enough money in his pocket to buy a cheap hot dog from a vendor (complete with condiments!), _and_ enough time to take a few minutes and sit on the hood of his car eating it, was an okay day in his book.

Stan was torn between wanting to wolf it down as fast as possible, and wanting to eat as slow as he could in order to savor the taste, and wound up eating it somewhere in between speeds, getting ketchup and mustard and sauerkraut all over his face and hand in the process but not caring because it meant more flavor to lick up afterwards and pretend he was eating more.

_Nothing like processed meat to make up a healthy nutritious meal, hmm, Stanley? You better not let Ma catch you eating that-you know how she feels about non-kosher food._

Stan ignored the voice in the back of his head as best he could. You’d think it would be easier after a little over four years, but...it wasn’t.

When the last crumbs of the bun were in his stomach, he began licking his fingers clean, relishing the tastes-even though he hadn’t gotten any actual relish, heh heh, good pun right? Cuz, y’know, sometimes people like relish on their hot dogs?

Whatever.

Once he’d had his fill, Stan began wiping his hand off with the somewhat-greasy napkin that had come with the dog, and then-as a courtesy to his car-sacrificed a little from his precious water bottle to clean off a little more.

He was just wiping his hands on his jeans-and probably getting them all filthy again-when a voice shrieked, “GRUNKLE STAN!” and a figure crashed into him from the side, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

* * *

Immediately Stan’s instincts kicked in; he lashed out, giving his would-be assailant a hard elbow to the gut. Then, while they were gasping in pain, he freed himself the rest of the way, and one of his sneakers caught them in the shin so they were sent stumbling back even farther, giving him time to reach through the window of his car and fumble around until he found his gun and whirled to point it at-

A _girl_?

_...That’s new._

She looked like she was just barely out of her teens, same as he was, maybe a little younger. Her hair was long and brown, with a couple of pink streaks dyed into it, and pulled back into a real bouncy-looking ponytail at the top of her head; the streaks went well with her sweater, which was made out of soft-looking pink wool except for the design on the front of a white kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Beyond that, she had on jeans that had been drawn on all over and a pair of brightly-colored sneakers with miniature fuzzy dice attached to the laces. She was also staring at him with a look of hurt confusion.

_...If she’s a hitman of some kind, she’s got the best cover ever._

“Who are you?!” Stan demanded. Then, with sudden realization, “How do ya know my name?!”

He hadn’t used it since he left Jersey, there was no way anyone here’d know it unless they’d seen one of his commercials for the Shammy, but what were the odds of that?

The girl’s eyes were staring at the gun in a kind of horrified fascination as she answered, “I-uh-that’s not important! Stan, I need you to come with me right now-it’s a matter of life and death!”

She gestured to an alley a few feet away from them.

_Uh-huh._ Sure _. Just follow the pretty girl down the alley where no one can hear you scream-no way_ that’s _a terrible idea at all._

Stan’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Yeah, I’m not doing that.” With his free hand-he knew you needed to use both with a gun if you wanted to avoid the recoil, but for now he was just using it to threaten, he was hoping he wouldn’t have to actually _shoot_ the girl-he grabbed his keys out of his jeans pocket and used them to unlock his door, before opening it.

“Wait!” the girl pleaded. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gr-Stan! I just want-”

A few seconds later she was staring directly down the barrel of the gun, and Stan was desperately hoping she wouldn’t notice that his hands were trembling a little.

“I don’t know who you are, or how ya know my name,” he said through clenched teeth, “but stay away from me if ya know what’s good for you!”

Then he quickly gunned the engine and took off down the street.

* * *

About ten seconds later, a boy who looked a lot like the girl, but dressed in a far more subdued flannel shirt and jeans and with his bangs covering his forehead, stepped out of the alley.

“I _told_ you that was a bad idea,” he scolded.

The girl sighed, and rubbed her throbbing shin. “I know...I just-part of me hoped he’d recognize me somehow.”

The boy's expression softened, and he came over to rub her shoulder. “There’s no way he could possibly recognize you, Mabel. You haven’t even been born yet.”

She pouted. “But we’re _family_! There should be some kind of, I dunno, instinct or something that would help him at least know I wasn’t gonna hurt him!”

Personally, the boy was still trying to recover from the almost-heart attack of thinking his sister was about to get herself shot by their future great-uncle.

“We’re gonna try things _my_ way this time.”

Mabel sighed again, more resignedly. “Yeah, okay.”


	2. An offer you can't refuse

Stan didn’t relax until he was almost to the border into New Mexico. It was a state he hadn’t been banned from yet, so he figured he could hide out there for a couple months until the heat died down. Maybe he could try out his idea for a new vacuum cleaner design here.

_ Knew I shouldn’t’ve gotten mixed up with those guys last time I was in jail...that’s gotta be who she’s working for, right? I haven’t ticked anyone else off that much. Recently. _

Regardless, after sundown Stan parked in a field, with a lot of boulders everywhere so he couldn’t be seen from the road, and began setting up for the night. He munched on a couple of granola bars he’d managed to keep stashed in the glove compartment, before shoving everything that would fit onto the floor of the car and then making himself comfortable as best he could in the backseat.

It was a warm night (not surprising; after all, this was  _ Texas _ , where it only ever seemed to get cold in October), so Stan left the windows open a crack, with his old red jacket as a makeshift blanket draped over his stomach and legs. And, just in case, he kept his gun and both switchblades within grabbing distance.

Even so, it took him about an hour before his brain would relax enough for him to sleep.

* * *

He was awakened by a soft, almost indiscernible noise.

Thanks to multiple experiences having drilled the instinct into him, Stan’s eyes instantly flew open, and he was wide awake after only a minute of grogginess.

For another minute he lay perfectly still while his eyes adjusted to the darkness, trying to figure out what it was that had woken him up without alerting whoever-or whatever-might be lurking outside the Stanley-Mobile, ears straining. Everything was quiet now...but Stan was sure he’d heard  _ something _ .

Then he heard it again-a faint rustle, like feet moving across grass and trying to be quiet about it, somewhere very close to the car.

Slowly, painstakingly, his hand closed around his gun.

Stan tilted his head from one side to the other, trying to locate which side the noise was coming from, and how many of them there were.

It didn’t sound like more than two people were there...and unfortunately, there was one of them on either side of the car.

He could feel his heart picking up speed in his chest.  _ It’s okay, you’ve fought your way outta worse odds than this. You can do this. _

As quickly as he could, Stan sat up, firing two shots out first one window, then whirling around and shooting another two out the other.

Mentally he apologized to the car, but hey, it wasn’t the first time something like that happened to her, and with his track record it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Then, without pausing to see if he’d actually hit anyone, Stan scrambled into the driver’s seat and began fumbling the keys out of his jeans pocket. He was thinking at the speed of sheer terror (which, under the right circumstances, is even  _ faster _ than the speed of light), wondering if it was worth trying to get back on the road or if he should just take his chances going across the field and risk blowing out his tires to possibly have enough of the element of surprise to get away-

Something came flying in through one of the holes in the back window, and the inside of the car rapidly filled with a sickly-sweet-smelling smoke that, despite his efforts, he ended up inhaling a little of.

_ No, no no nononononono- _

Even as his vision began to blur and his ears started ringing, Stan jammed the key into the ignition, managed to turn it enough to get the engine roaring to life.

The last thing he saw was the shape of the steering wheel coming up to meet his face.

* * *

“Oh man, oh man oh man, are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine, he just grazed me a little! Don’t freak out, Dipper!”

“Don’t freak-there is BLOOD on your SHOULDER-!”

“And like I said, it’s  _ just  _ a  _ graze _ ! I just need to bandage it up, it’s no big deal. Calm down.”

_ Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. _

“Right. Okay. We can do this. We just gotta get moving before he wakes up. Come on, help me get him in the back.”

* * *

Stan regained consciousness to a splitting headache.

Not at all an unusual occurrence for him, but the good version never included him sitting more or less upright with his arms tied behind his back. His heart sank.

He also realized, slowly, that his nose and forehead were throbbing, and after a second realized in addition that he must have slammed head-first into the steering wheel when he blacked out. Nothing felt broken, but it still wasn’t the most pleasant sensation to wake up to.

Then he picked up the sounds of nervous voices whispering, and that helped draw him further into consciousness.

“...sure he’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, McGucket said it wouldn’t do any damage, just make him sleep for a while...seems like he kind of needs it anyway.” There was the thudding of shoes on the floor, and he could tell someone was standing in front of him. “He should be waking up any second now, if he isn’t already.”

Reluctantly Stan opened his eyes and lifted his head to face his captors with some measure of dignity.

They were in a shabby-looking motel room of some kind, not unlike some of the ones he occasionally stayed in, except maybe a little more bug-free.

To his disgust, not only was one of the two people staring at him that crazy girl from earlier (she was sitting on one of the beds; her sweater was off, showing the lavender T-shirt she had on underneath, and it looked like there was a fresh bandage on her shoulder), but the other was a boy who looked about the same age-and come to think of it, looked enough like her that he could be her brother-with a scraggly little goatee and dressed in a red flannel shirt like a lumberjack, only there was no way he could be one with those skinny arms.

_...This is not gonna look good on my street cred if people find out I got taken down by two scrawny kids. _

Stan glared at the pipsqueak defiantly. “If you’re gonna kill me, can ya skip the speech about whoever I p_ssed off wanting my head or whatever and just get it over with?” Though on second thought, if they wasted time soliloquizing it could give him time to break free and escape…

Surprisingly, the boy’s expression turned into one of abject horror, and he said quickly, “Wha-no, we’re not gonna kill you! We-sorry we had to bring you in like this, but it seemed like the best way to keep you from running away until you’ve had a chance to hear us out!”

...He  _ sounded _ genuine enough. That didn’t mean Stan trusted him or the girl an inch, so all he did was give him a long, hard stare and waited for him to keep talking.

The boy took a deep breath, and then ran a hand through his bangs, allowing Stan to catch a brief glimpse of something on his forehead.

“Stan Pines,” he said at last, in a tone that sounded like he’d rehearsed this speech several times to make sure he got it right, “we are special agents from the FBI-”

Stan couldn’t help cracking up. “ _ Right _ , and I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

For some reason this made the girl snort, and put a hand over her mouth like she was trying very hard not to laugh. The boy glared at her over his shoulder, before turning back to Stan. “We have badges if you don’t believe us-”

“Kid, I know Feds when I see ‘em. Neither of you are Feds.” And despite himself, he was starting to think they probably weren’t hitmen either. Even the best actors among hitmen wouldn’t be this good at seeming horrified at the idea of killing someone.   
  


The boy sighed, and visibly decided to change his story.

“We-we’re-”

The girl cut in. “We need your help, Stan. You’re right, we’re not with the FBI, but we’re part of a special investigation service, and we have discovered a threat that could wipe out the entire world unless we can stop it before it happens.”

Stan stared at her. On the one hand, at first glance this sounded more than a little unbelievable.

...On the other hand, unlike her brother (?), she at least seemed to believe that this was the truth; she wasn’t obviously lying.

_ Great. I’ve been kidnapped by conspiracy theorists or something. _

The girl flinched at his expression, clearly recognizing the disbelief there-but then the boy said, “We’ll pay you if you help us.”

A little part of Stan that still had his pride was disgusted by how the rest of him perked up with delight at those magic words.

_ Money is good. Money means survival. Earning a  _ lot  _ of money means- _

_...Wait. _

His eyes narrowed, and he finally asked the most important question: “How much?”

The boy knelt until they were eye to eye. “We will see to it that you never go hungry again, Stanley.”

* * *

It was too good to be true.

Obviously it was too good to be true.

There had to be some kind of a catch.

But neither of the kids seemed like they were going to leave him alone until they got him to do this job, and if things got too heavy he could always make a break for it and flee to Colombia or wherever. And on the off chance that it  _ was _ somehow true…

Stan let out a long exhale.

“You better be tellin’ the truth about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Admittedly, Dipper's strategy wasn't much better than Mabel's for gaining Stan's trust.  
> But hey, it worked, didn't it?


	3. Oh, what a tangled web we weave

It was... _jarring_ , being around this person who was both like and unlike the old man Dipper had come to know and love that one summer nearly eight years ago.

He was far more bedraggled than Grunkle Stan had ever been, wearing a filthy formerly-white T-shirt and jeans with a hole in one knee, and hair in a tangly mess that he wouldn’t be surprised to find lice in. There were dark circles under his eyes that could rival the ones Dipper often got from one too many sleepless nights, and the skin around the left one was slightly yellow-looking, like it was healing from an old bruise.

His face and voice were similar enough for them to recognize the grinning, sly huckster he would become, even if the former was less wrinkly and the latter a little less gravelly, but both were filled with mistrust as he stared at them, as well as, behind the hostile sarcasm, genuine _fear_.

Dipper _hated_ seeing that expression on Stan’s face, even though he knew there wasn’t much he could do about it right now. Instead, all he could do was hope that he and Mabel could pull this off.

“If I untie you, do you promise not to try to escape?” he asked.

Stan shrugged. “You don’t have to.” A few seconds later he shook his shoulders, and then stretched his newly-freed arms as the rope fell to the floor.

Dipper’s jaw dropped. “Wha-how-”

His young grunkle smirked at him. “Ya think I’ve never been tied up before? And I gotta tell ya, this was _amateur_ work. You really wanna keep me from gettin’ loose, use zip ties next time.”

Mabel burst into laughter. “Ohhhhh, you should see your face, Dipper!”

Dipper whirled on his sister. “Mabel! What did I say about using-!” A few seconds later he realized what he’d just done and groaned into his hand.

_So much for those code names I put so much effort into creating._

Stan tilted his head in amusement. “At least I got somethin’ ta call you now besides just ‘hey, you.’” Then he wrinkled his nose. “Though I gotta ask, what kinda name is Dipper?”

He felt his face getting hot. “My kind.”

 _At least the first time we met you_ knew _why everyone calls me that._

_At least then you knew who I was._

“So, what’s this threat you’re goin’ on about?” Stan asked, leaning back in the chair and folding his arms behind his head. It was probably in an attempt to appear more nonchalant so they wouldn’t see how much he was still on his guard.

Mabel stood up, and cleared her throat. “Okay, I know this is gonna sound pretty crazy, but just hear me out. It’s...a cave painting that’s been discovered in the mountains of Oregon.” Or rather, it _would_ be discovered, unless they could get to it first. “It doesn’t _look_ like a big deal, but there’s information on it that, if some idiot found it and decided to use it, could destroy the world. We need to get to it and erase it before that happens.”

Stan tilted his head. “What, is it instructions for a new kinda atomic bomb or something?”

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, and then back at Stan.

“Yes, except way worse.”

Despite himself, Dipper felt goosebumps rising on his arms and a cold feeling rising in his stomach as he remembered just how much worse it could get: blood-colored skies, creatures of all sizes and shapes chasing after terrified humans, a cold, high-pitched laughter-

_Focus!_

Stan was watching him again, staring at him hard. Then, abruptly, he asked, “So why do ya need _me_ ta help you with this thing? Why can’t ya just go and destroy it yourselves?”

_This_ , at least, they were somewhat better prepared for.

“We need transportation that can bring us there as quickly and as under the radar as possible, and you’re one of the best people for the job, Stan Pines.”

One bushy eyebrow rose. “You can’t afford your own secret transportation?”

“Our agency’s budget is crap when it comes to small details.” Not as bad as it could have been, thanks to a little help from Dipper’s very rich technically-not-girlfriend, but it wasn’t like her money would be good this far back in the past.

“But you can still afford ta give me this huge payment afterwards?”

Both Dipper and Mabel nodded quickly. “We promise, it will be worth your while.”

Stan still looked suspicious, but also like, for now at least, he was willing to go along with them. “Any big threats I oughta worry about?”

“The wildlife is a little crazy where we’re going. You’re gonna want to stay on your guard.”

“Trust me, Dip, I always am.”

To his horror, Dipper felt a sudden lump rise in his throat.

Stan was the only one who had ever shortened his nickname like that. Even with Mabel it was always Dip-Dop, or Dippingsauce, or Dipperoni, or something equally goofy, and Ford called him either Dipper or (not so much anymore) “my boy.”

...He hadn’t realized how much he missed hearing it.

Quickly he swallowed, and nodded. “Good. You’re gonna need to be.”

Stan gave him a quizzical look; he ignored it and went to sit on the bed next to Mabel. Her hand surreptitiously stole into his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Do you have any other questions for us?” Mabel asked.

Stan shrugged. “Anything else I oughta know?”

The twins looked at each other, and then back at him. Finally Dipper said, “Not at the moment, no. You should try getting some rest; we’ll want to get an early start.”

“You can take a shower if you want,” Mabel offered.

Stan shrugged. “Eh, I don’t have anything clean ta change into afterwards, so there’s no point-”

“We have some spare clothes that should fit you.” Mabel reached into their suitcase and produced a clean undershirt, boxers, jeans and a shirt.

Stan froze. “...Okay, that’s just scary.”

Mabel grinned at him. “Trust me, Stan, we know a _lot_ about you.”

“Really not making me feel reassured.” But he took the clothes, and disappeared into the bathroom. A few minutes later they could hear the sound of water running.

Dipper had already checked, and the window wasn’t big enough for him to escape out of, so he just reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, a piece of paper and a pen.

There was no reception this far back in the past, so it was no good trying to call or text, but his and Mabel’s phones still had a few features; for example, before they left McGucket had rigged them up so the GPS system would still work. And they could still take pictures and play Mutated Greenery vs. The Undead, if they so desired. Right now, though, Dipper had to do something a little more important.

He wrote, “FOUND HIM. GOING TO START DRIVING FIRST THING IN THE MORNING” on the paper, followed by the date and time, and then folded it and put it in the envelope. Then Dipper sealed it, and scrawled the image of a pinetree on the back of the envelope. Then he pulled back the chest of drawers resting behind the bed, and dropped the envelope behind it, before pushing it back into place.

It wasn’t a perfect communication system, obviously; but they had done some research on this motel, and it would remain relatively unchanged for over the next forty years, so it was a better chance than nothing. If he looked in the right place, he’d find it.

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

More than forty years later, a tall figure double checked his surroundings again, before pulling out a few tools and using them to unlock the door to the motel room. He slipped in as noiselessly as a shadow, before shutting the door behind him and quickly making his way to between the beds.

Using only the faintest speck of light from the device in his hand, he pulled the bureau forward, and reached down, searching for something…

His fingers brushed against something brittle and papery, and he snatched it and tried to lift it out without damaging it.

The figure looked at the picture on the back, and then opened it as gently as possible.

The paper was less decayed than it could have been, thanks to special preservation techniques discovered in the multiverse, but he still had to be careful and make sure the edges didn’t crumble in his hands as he broke the seal and lifted out the paper.

He unfolded it, looked at the message.

And sighed in relief, letting his head droop.

“Bravo, children.”


	4. Secrets and doughnuts

Despite himself, Stan took his time in the shower, enjoying the feeling of being clean for the first time in months.

He used up most of the shampoo on his hair, combing through it with his fingers afterwards to get the knots out as best he could (it wasn’t like he had a brush on him). Then, when he finally got out, he toweled off and then pulled on the shorts and undershirt. The fact that they were just his size was not making him any less disturbed by his new employers.

Speak of the devil, when he peered through the door after opening it a crack, they were still sitting side by side on the bed closest to the door, talking quietly. He tilted his head to see if he could pick up any words.

“...said he was there for about four years before contacting him, so we’ve got plenty of time.” Dipper had a pen in his hand, and was clicking it frantically while looking at a battered red journal that was sitting in his lap.

Mabel looked over his shoulder and made a face at whatever they were reading. “Ugh, ‘divine and otherworldly insight’?  _ Please _ .”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Trust me, this is making me nauseous too.” The pen clicked with even more fervor. “We gotta stay away from town until afterwards so he doesn’t catch us and try to stop us. Because you know he probably would.”

Mabel pouted a little, but sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I know. I still wanna go and see what everything’s like, if there’s still-”

She was silenced by her brother raising his hand, and looking up towards the bathroom suspiciously. “Stan? Are you almost done in there?”

Even though he hadn’t opened the door enough to be conspicuous, Stan jumped guiltily. “Yeah, almost! Coming out in a bit!”

Quickly he rubbed the towel over his hair, tossed it on the floor, and stepped out into the main room.

Mabel gave him a scolding look, and got up; brushing past him, she picked up the towel and hung it on the rack, before returning with his clothes.

“You’re as big of a slob as Dipper!” she scolded, as she set the new ones next to his bed before tossing the old things into the trash.

“Hey!”

Even though he was a little annoyed by her throwing his old things away, since they were still technically wearable, Stan couldn’t help snickering at the indignant look on the other kid’s face; it reminded him of similar arguments he’d have with-

Nope. Not thinking about any of that.

“So, how’s this gonna work?” Stan indicated the two beds.

Mabel sat down on the same bed as Dipper again, bouncing a little. “You sleep in that one, and we sleep in this one!”

“She’s my sister; don’t make it weird,” Dipper said quickly.

Stan couldn’t help rolling his eyes a little. “Yeah, I can tell she’s your sister. You got basically the same face.” Without further ado he flopped down onto his own bed, stretching out and enjoying the feel of a comfortable mattress under his back for once, in addition to clean clothes and a not-badly-bashed-in face and the prospect of money in his future. Even if it was by dealing with a couple of shady kids who apparently had some weirdo after them or whatever.

He was still processing what he’d overheard in his mind, trying to figure out what it all meant, when he fell asleep.

* * *

Stan woke to the sound of his name being called by a soft feminine voice.

First the still-foggy part of his brain thought it was time for breakfast, before he’d have to get ready for school,  _ ugh _ .

Then he remembered that Ma was back in Glass Shard Beach, and he was stuck somewhere in Texas, and he hadn’t been to school in years  since that last night in the gym .

It was followed by a surge of panic; then who the heck was calling his real-

_ Oh. _

_ Yeah. _

_ Right. _

Stan opened his eyes, and saw Mabel standing over his bed, beaming down at him. Today her hair was held back by a red headband with a pair of pointed devil’s horns attached, and she was wearing a new sweater, a green one with a little pink ghost design in the middle.

“Morning, sleepyhead!” she chirped when she saw that he was awake.

Stan grumbled and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He idly noticed that the blankets had been tucked over him at some point during the night.

“Just gimme a second ta get dressed, then we’ll go,” he mumbled.

“Don’t you want to eat breakfast first?”

Against Stan’s wishes, his stomach growled.

“Dipper went out to get it,” Mabel said, sitting down on the other bed and idly letting her legs swing. “He should be back  _ any _ second now.”

Stan grunted in acknowledgement, and then got all the way out of bed, grabbing his clothes and heading for the bathroom.

As he was washing his hands, he thought he heard a funny sound coming from the main room: a sort of music, but not the kind you could dance to. More like...the kind that you heard coming from the arcade. Very electro-sounding stuff.

Cautiously Stan peeked out again.

He could see Mabel lying stretched out on the bed with her back to him, apparently very interested in something that was making a blue light shine on her face. Stan couldn’t make out what it was, but he heard her making a little frustrated grunt, and as he crept out, he could see one of her thumbs moving back and forth very rapidly.

Before he could get too close, Mabel seemed to realize he was there; hurriedly she sat up, and whatever it was disappeared, before she spun around to face him with a wide, innocent grin.

_ Rats. _

“Whatcha doin’?” Stan asked casually.

“...Uh-trying to decide if I should keep my hair like this, or put in some braids.” She toyed with some of her curls. “Any thoughts?”

“...No.”

She let out an annoyed huff. “You are no help at all.”

Stan sat down on his bed and began pulling on his shoes. “That’s what they tell me.”

Her reaction was not at all what he’d been expecting; Mabel’s expression suddenly turned into one of absolute  _ anguish _ , and she surged across the gap between them to sit at his side.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry!”

“Whoa, hey, it-it’s okay, don’t-” Stan tried to scoot away uncomfortably.

“No it’s  _ not _ !” Before he could get too far she grabbed his hand. “You’re a  _ lot _ of help, Stan, I don’t care what anyone else thinks! You shouldn’t say -”

Before things could get even more weird, the door opened and in came Dipper, carrying a large cardboard box and a carton containing three drinks. He stared at them in confusion.

“...What in the heck is going on?”

Stan quickly stood up and moved away from Mabel. “Nuthin.”

Dipper looked to Mabel, who actually  _ sniffled _ , before rubbing her eyes and standing up. “...It’s fine, Dipper, don’t worry about it.”

Stan was more confused than ever.

* * *

Breakfast turned out to be doughnuts and croissants with chocolate in the middle. Stan barely had to remind himself to save some for the other two-though he did notice that while they seemed pretty hungry themselves, there were plenty of leftovers. A small suspicious part of his brain wondered if any of this was poisoned or something, but there wasn’t enough diversity in the flavors of the doughnuts to make him too suspicious.

For coffee, Dipper had plain black with a bag of sugar thrown in, and Mabel had something covered in whipped cream and different sauces which Stan suspected had some kind of fancy Italian name that would be too much effort for him to bother learning how to spell, let alone say.

As for his coffee...it was just how he liked it, with generous amounts of cream and sugar thrown in, and maybe even a bit of cinnamon.

But that part was impossible; nobody, not even Ford, knew that he liked it that way.

When they finished, the kids quickly brushed their teeth (and had a spare toothbrush and toothpaste for Stan, who admittedly enjoyed having clean teeth for once), and repacked their suitcase. Then, after checking to make sure they had everything, they headed out to the Stanley-Mobile.

One or both of them, Stan noticed, had put strips of duct tape over the bullet holes in the back windows, and apparently cleaned up the inside a little bit; there was less trash than he remembered in there.

“It’s gonna take us over a day to get there if we drive nonstop,” Dipper said as they got in the car, “but we can probably just get halfway there today and do the rest tomorrow.”

“I thought you said the safety of the world was at stake,” Stan said dryly, snatching the keys when Dipper held them out, and growling a little inside at the idea that someone else had been driving  _ his _ car.

“It is. But we’ll have an easier time dealing with it if we’re adequately rested.”

Stan shrugged. “Whatever ya say, Dip.”


	5. More cryptic allusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will not torture you with deliberate ambiguity.  
> Repeat, it will not torture you with deliberate ambiguity.

After they left the parking lot, Stan drove to the freeway that would take them in the right direction. Dipper rode shotgun, and Mabel sprawled across the backseat, stretching in a very exaggerated fashion.

“Mmmm, it’s nice having this all to myself!” she said aloud.

Dipper rolled his eyes. “We used to have to share the backseat all the time when we were kids,” he said.

Stan grunted. He couldn’t exactly relate; it wasn’t like they’d had a car growing up until he bought and fixed up this one, and even then he’d always been the driver, unless Ford was able to bribe him well enough.

...Although they had been forced to share basically everything else, so maybe he could. Regardless, it had gone past the point where he could contribute this tidbit of information without it being awkward, and it wasn’t like he cared that much about doing so anyway.

While keeping his left hand on the wheel, he reached over and snapped the radio on, turning the dial back and forth until a good 50's station came on.

“Ooh, can we turn to a different station? I wanna see if there’s any boy bands on!”

Mabel sat up and leaned towards the knob, but Stan smacked her hand away.

“First rule of long car trips: driver gets ta pick the music, passengers get ta shut their yaps.”

He could see her pouting in the rearview mirror, but was unmoved.

* * *

Eventually Mabel fell asleep, snoring softly against the seat. Dipper, however, remained awake. He had pulled that journal out again, and was flipping through it with a thoughtful frown on his face.

During a red light Stan glanced over at it out of the corner of his eye.

At first he’d thought the journal was all plain red, but now he could see a kind of dark outline on the front cover, like something used to be there. Something gold-colored, judging by a few fragments that were still stuck to it.

“What’s that?” Stan asked, unable to suppress his sudden curiosity.

Dipper startled, and flashed him a guilty look. For a second he hesitated, before at last saying softly, “My uncle’s journal. Or-it’s mine now, but it used to be his.”

“Nice gift.”

Dipper’s eyebrows drew together. “...Yeah.”

At that moment the car behind them honked its horn loudly, and Stan realized that the light was green, so he hurriedly stepped on the gas. While he did that, Dipper buried himself in his journal, a pretty clear sign that he was ending the conversation.

_...They’ve gotta be just insane conspiracy theorists, right? _ Stan asked himself as the drive returned to silence.  _ Stuff like tryna save the world just happens in comic books and cheesy kid’s cartoons, it doesn’t happen in real life. _

_ Who cares? Long as they really  _ pay  _ me afterwards, it’s no skin off my nose if it’s real or not. _

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

He didn’t know how much longer they had left.

The Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron had by now doubtless realized that someone had managed to assemble and use an unauthorized traveling device, but he didn’t know if they’d have figured out the century that it came from yet, or who had built it.

If they had, hopefully the bypass he and Fiddleford had installed would hide the children’s time signatures until this was all taken care of.

Not that it would matter, if things went the way they were supposed to.

Either way, he had to keep moving. Even time travelers had to move through space too, and they couldn’t do them simultaneously.

He wandered the streets, keeping an eye open for anyone dressed all in silver and green metalwear and carrying some kind of high-tech weaponry.

It was, quite literally, just a matter of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay, so I lied.  
> I thought you would have learned not to trust me by now, so it's your own fault if you believed me.


	6. Stan's employers continue to be unprofessional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: vomiting.

After a long, quiet drive (aside from the radio), they stopped for gas somewhere in Utah.

Dipper hopped out of the car as they came to a stop in front of the machine, and pulled a wad of crumpled bills from his jeans that he began feeding to it.

Stan was glad that he didn’t have to use the length of hose in the trunk for once, and just took the opportunity to stretch his cramped limbs and neck, and flex the soreness out of his hands from holding the wheel for so long.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he suddenly felt a hand touch his shoulder, and quickly jerked away, spinning with his hands already rising into fists-

Only to see Mabel, who had apparently woken up when they came to a stop, and was now standing behind him.

She flinched back at his expression. “Sorry, I-I thought maybe I could help. I took a few classes in shiatsu massage, and my old roommates said I was really good at it. If you want I could get some of the tension out of your back and stuff.”

_ What the heck’s a shiatsu? _

All Stan said out loud, though, was a sharp “No” as he stepped further out of reach.

Mabel’s hopeful expression immediately shrank into crestfallenness.

Stan’s stomach squirmed with a surprising amount of uncomfortable guilt; it seemed like she just wanted to help, and besides, maybe this massage thing’d really work.

...But the idea of letting a stranger who seemed to know so much about him  _ touch _ him, when out here touch and friendly words meant either pain or lies...he just couldn’t do it.

All he could do was shove his hands into his pockets and head towards the store to find something he could grab for the road.

Dipper was already in one of the aisles, grabbing a bag of Chipackers. He waved when Stan walked in, just a little casual lift of the hand, and then went back to selecting food.

_ Massages, waving...these kids really don’t understand the rules for hiring an underling, do they? _

Suddenly feeling more irritated than he needed to be, Stan stomped to the candy section. He snatched selections of fruit-flavored and chocolate candies (not any toffee peanuts, though-he’d kind of lost his taste for them), not realizing until too late that he had too much stuff to inconspicuously hide in his pockets or under his T-shirt. He leaned against the aisle and forced himself to take a few calming breaths as he considered his next move.

The boring solution would be to just put some of the stuff back. Less chance of getting caught, but also less food for the future.

A more risky, but possibly more profitable, solution would be moseying closer to the door with his supplies, and then if the guy at the front noticed him, distracting him by throwing one of the bags of chocolate at his face and then making a break for it. Unfortunately, that would mean having to sacrifice some of his ill-gotten gains.

_ If I ever get enough money, I’m gonna buy a bunch of smoke bombs for situations like this. And always wear a coat with lots of pockets. Or even just a vest. Yeah, a vest’d be good-make me look like a photographer or somethin’, but at least then I could- _

He was startled out of his thoughts by the realization that Dipper was standing right in front of him, and saying something.

“...Huh?”

“I was asking if you have everything you want,” he repeated patiently. His brown eyes were giving Stan a very intense stare, like he knew perfectly well what he’d been thinking; something about it made him look away uncomfortably.

“Almost. Just need a drink.”

Despite the wording of the phrase, all he got was a bottle of water. Dipper grabbed a couple bottles for himself and his sister, and then pulled out more money.

“We’ll have to save some cash for tomorrow, but I think we can afford to get all this.”

Stan felt that uncomfortable sensation again, the one that made him feel hot and irritable under the collar. All he could say, though, was “Great.”

Mabel let out a delighted squeal when she saw that they now had a few bags of gummy koalas, and immediately ripped one open and began stuffing her face as they got back in the car.

“Remember, we’ve still got a long way to drive,” Dipper admonished her. “Try not to make yourself carsick, okay?”

Mabel stuck out her tongue at him, with a decapitated koala head lying on top of it. “I haven’t had these in ages, Dip-Dop, so I’m gonna enjoy them all I want!”

* * *

**_One hour later_ **   
  


Cars whizzed down the highway, past the El Diablo parked on the side, as Dipper knelt next to Mabel and held her hair back out of her face.

“...I don’t wanna say I told you so-” he started to say.

“Shut up, Dipper,” Mabel moaned, before adding more half-digested rainbow gooey mush to the pile on the gravel.

Stan grimaced in disgust, and turned his eyes back to the road.

After another minute she’d finished emptying her stomach, and Dipper handed her a water bottle to clean the nasty taste out of her mouth.

“You okay now?” he asked, rubbing her back.

She nodded weakly, and leaned her head on his shoulder, before calling softly, “Sorry, Stan.”

“...It’s okay, it happens.”

Luckily, none of it had gotten in the car. It had tried to, but Mabel had actually forced herself to hold her mouth shut until Stan was able to pull over and she could get out, so she wouldn’t even get vomit on the paint job.

He didn’t understand his employers at all.

* * *

It was sunset when they stopped for the night, at another cheap motel that was still better than most of the places Stan managed to stay in when he could actually afford to stay somewhere that was not-his-car. Once again, Dipper paid for it with his own money, and then went out and came back with some cheap hamburgers and sodas (fortunately Mabel had recovered from her earlier carsickness enough to enjoy the food with them).

The downside was that this particular motel was closer to Nevada than Stan would have liked, because there were some people there who might still be mad at him, because reasons.

But hey, it wasn’t like  _ they  _ had any reason to be around here, right? They wouldn’t get good business in a state that was all full of Mormons, so they’d probably stay in Nevada, around Vegas territory. He was probably safe, as long as they didn’t leave their room or draw any undue attention to themselves or-

“Guys, I’m gonna swim in the pool!” Mabel chirped, digging around in the suitcase and producing a bright pink suit. “You wanna come?”

_...The universe just hates my guts, doesn’t it? _

“Pass,” Dipper said, without looking up. He was lying stretched out on the bed, writing in his journal; it seemed like he spent every spare minute with his nose in that thing ~~ , kind of like someone Stan wasn’t thinking about ~~ .

Mabel looked at Stan hopefully. “Stan?”

He flicked on the TV and leaned back on his own bed, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Pass.”

That crestfallen look happened again, lasting a little longer. But then she made her way to the bathroom, and returned in the swimsuit, carrying a towel over her arm.

“Serves you guys right if something happens to me while I’m out swimming by myself!” she scolded them both.

Dipper snorted. “You’re carrying your grappling hook under your towel, Mabel.”

She looked down guiltily, and slid the object further into hiding. “...That doesn’t prove anything!” A second later she stomped out, after swiping one of the room keys.

Stan, despite himself, felt his eyes widening and asked without thinking about it, “Where the heck did she get a grappling hook from?”

Dipper’s mouth curled up on one side. “One of the founders of our organization let her have it. It’s helped save our butts several times.”

“Whoa.” He raised an impressed eyebrow. “If you’d dragged that out from the beginning maybe I woulda believed you when you said you were Feds.”

“Really?”

Stan scoffed. “No.”

The small smile turned into a full-out laugh. But then, after a few seconds, it stopped, and he got that almost melancholy look in his eyes he’d had at that one point last night, before quickly turning his gaze back to the journal.

_...O-kay... _

* * *

Stan absorbed himself in the mindless sitcom that was on, not trying very hard to follow the plot and instead just enjoying the feeling of having a full stomach twice in one day. At some point he registered when Dipper got up to go to the bathroom, but continued more or less vegetating.

He only snapped out of it when he heard the sound of the key turning in the lock, and looked up as the door opened to ask Mabel how her swim had gone, and if she’d needed to use her grappling hook to fend off unwanted suitors or whatever (it wouldn’t surprise him; he didn’t think she was his type, but she was still pretty cute).

It wasn’t Mabel.


	7. Wrath of the Mystery Twins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: implied attempted rape, references to torture, and some brief violence.

**_Flashback flashback flashback flashback_ **

It had happened the first time he was in jail, after he got run out of his third state.

Stan was arrested for trying to shoplift from a grocery store, and the judge had not been sympathetic towards him at all, giving him a long lecture about how people like him were parasites on society that nearly made Stan increase his sentence by asking if he was related to his dad.

Being the idiot that he was, Stan had used his one phone call to call the number Mom had given him for Ford’s dorm at Backupsmore. But yet again, as soon as he heard his brother’s voice he hung up without speaking, and then shook his head in disgust at himself.

What exactly was he thinking about saying? “Oh, hi Ford, it’s your screwup twin! Remember me, the one that messed up your chance at going to West Coast Tech? Listen, I’m in jail because I was tryna steal food to keep myself from starving to death, because it turns out the real world is harder than I thought it would be. You mind bailing me out?”

Yeah. Right.

He quietly went to his cell, gave his bunk mate a glare that said, ‘However tough you think you are, trust me, I’m worse,’ and didn’t speak for the rest of the night.

A week later three guys had approached him in a corner of the cafeteria, because the security in this place stunk worse than skunk cabbage and the guards weren’t supervising them at all.

At first Stan wasn’t sure what they wanted, so instead of fleeing like he should have he just stood there warily until they had already cornered him. Then it became all too horribly clear what they wanted.

Fortunately, he still remembered what he’d learned from boxing, and had been able to fight back enough to keep them at bay for a few nightmarish minutes.

Then, when the biggest guy managed to knock him off his feet and started trying to pin him, Stan learned very quickly how to use a shiv which his thrashing hand had managed to find discarded on the floor (did I mention how crappy the security was there?).

Either luckily or unluckily, depending on your point of view, all of them had walked away from the experience alive; however, the three men had all been left with scars to remember Steve Pinington by.

Then, as they fled like the cowards they were, Stan had lurched to his feet. Hoping none of the other inmates would notice how badly his hands were shaking around the bloody shiv, he’d yelled defiantly, “WHO ELSE WANTS SOME?!”

No one had taken him up on the offer, and he’d managed to get away before the guards came to investigate the racket, and frantically washed his hands and arms before hiding the knife in his mattress.

He was there for a little under six months, thanks to getting time off for good behavior (shocking idea, I know); thankfully for the rest of that time everyone else more or less ignored him.

Everyone except a guy called Knives.

He’d approached Stan a few days after the incident and told him that he liked his style, and that his boss might have room in his gang for a guy like him after they got out of here, someone to be a good source of muscle when things got tough.

And Stan had been dumb enough to think it was a good idea at first. Then he’d learned what kind of hired muscle they wanted him to be (i.e. the kind that asks people questions, and keeps hitting them long after they’ve lost consciousness if they don’t give the right kind of answers), and he’d been forced to cut and run. But not before he’d let loose some of the people he was supposed to be “questioning.” He knew it was probably stupid of him, but he couldn’t make himself be heartless enough to leave them.

**_End of flashback end of flashback end of flashback end of flashback_ **

* * *

And now the proof of how stupid he’d been had caught up with him at last: Knives was sliding into the room and closing the door behind him, wearing the same smile he’d had on the first time they met, except with a sharper edge to it that matched his name, and a gun in his hand.

_ D_mn. Maybe he recognized my car or something. Knew I shoulda changed the paint job long ago- _

To his surprise, the next thought that crossed Stan’s brain as he sat up was to wonder what he’d done to Mabel.

He doubted she’d ever willingly hand her key over, and she was clearly more than capable of handling herself, but what if he’d-

Knives looked over at the bathroom door, with the light shining underneath that indicated Dipper was inside. One thin black eyebrow raised, before he stepped over to the television, keeping the gun trained on Stan the whole time, and turned up the volume; then he began flipping through the channels until he found a show that had some kind of a gunfight going on.

Stan realized immediately what was about to happen; his heart sank into his stomach.

The second surprising thought in Stan’s head was annoyance at how  _ unfair _ this was.

Knives wasn’t even going to take the time to monologue about how disappointed he was in Stan or whatever before shooting him, like any self-respecting comic book villain would! Had his betrayal really meant that little to him?!

_ Stanley, stop sulking because you’re about to be killed without a dramatic speech and figure out what you’re gonna do to stop it happening. _

All these thoughts crossed his brain in less than a handful of seconds. Then, as Knives leveled the gun at him again, he acted on the last one in the best way he knew how: he grabbed one of the bags of trail mix that he’d brought into the motel with him, and hurled it at the other man’s face.

Fortunately, Stan managed to duck just as the gun went off; he felt the bullet whistle through his hair as he dropped to the floor. He was just about to dive for Knives’s legs to knock him off balance, when all at once the motel door burst open. Seconds later a blur of something metallic smashed into Knives’s chest, sending him to the floor with a scream of pain. As this happened, a voice screamed, “GET AWAY FROM HIM!” before another blur, this time in pink, pounced on him and started pounding its fists into his face.

* * *

Stan had never considered the possibility that one day he would be rescued by a woman in a swimsuit with a grappling hook. It sounded like something out of  _ Fully Clothed Women _ .

He spent too long staring in shock, and noticing that she had a pretty good left hook, before remembering himself and quickly jumping in; he slammed his foot down on Knives’s wrist, forcing him to let go of the gun with a hoarse scream. Stan kicked it away, and then followed up with another kick, this time to the face. Knives immediately went limp; Stan hoped he hadn’t killed him. At least a little bit.

Seconds later Mabel was on her feet, grabbing his shoulders anxiously and looking him up and down.

“Are you okay?! Did he hurt you?!”

“Wha-no, he didn’t get the chance-”

The bathroom door slammed open, and Dipper came rushing out. He let out a hoarse croak when he saw the scene in front of him.

“There was one more who showed up at the pool, and kept me distracted while this one stole my key,” Mabel said grimly, letting go of Stan. “I tied him up in the pool net.”

Dipper nodded. “Anymore around?”

“I didn’t see, but we should probably get going just in case.”

Dipper gave Stan a sharp look. “Is he likely to have more guys?”

Stan’s jaw flapped. “I-I didn’t think they’d wanna kill me this much, but guess I was wrong-”

“Yeah, we should get going.”

Quickly Dipper and Mabel gathered their stuff together and rushed it out to the car in a way that seemed like they’d done it a hundred times before, not giving Stan a chance to even grab his duffel bag before it was already packed up for him.

“What about him?” Mabel asked as they gathered at the door.

Dipper hesitated. Then, with an uncomfortable grimace, he went over to where Stan had kicked the gun, and picked it up gingerly. His hands trembled a little, but with an effort he pointed it at Knives, expression setting into something more resolute.

Stan’s eyes widened; he hadn’t realized this kid would be ruthless enough to-

There was a loud bang, and a splintering noise, and a second later Knives’s kneecap was oozing blood onto the carpet; he let out a pained moan, but didn’t quite regain consciousness.

Dipper looked like he was about to toss the gun away again, but instead he shoved it into his pocket before stumbling out the door and throwing up into one of the decorative bushes.

When he finished he straightened up and wiped his mouth.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

Stan’s thoughts were in a whirl as they hurriedly drove off into the night, after Mabel had taken a second to wrap one of the bedsheets around Knives’s knee in a makeshift tourniquet so he wouldn’t bleed to death before the cops showed up.

This...the way these two had immediately jumped into protecting him and worrying about his safety...it wasn’t the sort of attention you gave to an underling.

It wasn’t even the sort of attention you gave a valued employee.

It was the kind you gave to someone who was  _ important  _ to you somehow.

“...Who  _ are _ you?” he asked as they zoomed through a stoplight.

For a few seconds there was no reply, as Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance, the streetlights briefly making their features stand out against the shadows as they passed them.

Finally, though, Dipper said, “...We can’t tell you that, Stan. Sorry.”

“But we  _ can _ tell you that we’re not gonna let anyone hurt you. Not ever again, if we can help it,” Mabel said softly. Her hand snaked forwards and touched his arm, squeezing gently.

This time, Stan didn’t try to pull away or shake her off.


	8. Group A rests; Group B runs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another story that's developed a much longer lifespan than I expected. Yeesh, I seem to have a habit of that.

Eventually, despite the adrenaline rush from his latest near-death experience, Stan became too exhausted to drive any further, and just found a nearby truck stop to park at (cutting across several spots at once, but he wasn’t really in a frame of mind to care).

Hardly anyone else was there, aside from a few nearby semis parked randomly across the lot. It was perfect.

Stan leaned his head against the wheel with a groan, rubbing his throbbing eyes and feeling his neck twinging in protest at the way he’d been treating it.

For a minute everyone just sat there in shell-shocked silence, until finally Mabel said, “I’m gonna go get changed.”

She rummaged around in the suitcase for a few seconds before opening the door and slipping out, heading for the outdoor bathroom.

After another moment, Stan lifted his head a little and glanced at Dipper.

For once, he wasn’t hiding in his journal. Instead, he was staring blankly out the windshield, hugging himself and trembling. Stan realized, with a small twinge in his gut, that it was probably the way he’d looked after that time in jail when he’d had to defend himself against those [ **CENSOREDS** ].

He cleared his throat.

“Hey.”

Dipper turned his head in his direction.

“Uh...thanks.” Stan gave him an awkward smile. “For earlier. I get you didn’t wanna do that, but...thank you.” He lifted a fist and offered it to him.

The kid’s eyes did that somewhere-between-happy-and-sad thing again, but then he lifted his own fist and tapped it against Stan’s.

“Hopefully he’ll know better than to come after you again,” he said hoarsely.

“Heh. We’ll see.”

When Mabel returned, clad in her markered jeans and a new sweater (pinkish-purple, with a jaguar-print design), she opened Dipper’s door and knelt to be on his level.

“Hey, bro-bro. How ya doin’?”

Dipper shrugged and smiled weakly. “I oughta be asking you that.”

Mabel grinned, and held up her fists. Stan finally noticed that they’d been wrapped with gauze; she must’ve split her knuckles or something punching Knives. He winced in sympathy.

“You kidding? That was  _ awesome _ ! He never saw me coming!”

Dipper held up his hand for a high-five. A few seconds later he realized his mistake, as Mabel gripped her sore fingers. “Oh, sorry, forgot!”

“No-it’s okay-ow-” A small hiss of pain escaped the girl’s teeth, before she took a deep breath and straightened up. She smiled at them both.

Dipper gave her another guilty glance, before saying, “Just to be safe, we should probably sleep in shifts tonight.”

“I call the first shift!” Mabel said quickly. “Dipper, you can go sleep in the back!”

“Mabel-”

“My hands are gonna be keeping me up anyway. Besides, you deserve a chance to stretch out.” She squeezed her brother’s shoulder.

Finally, with a fond smile that made Stan’s heart twinge, Dipper gave a nod of reluctant acknowledgement, before getting out of the car and climbing into the back. A few seconds later, however, he made a disgusted noise.

“Ugh! Mabel, the spot where you were sitting’s all wet!”

Mabel giggled as she got into the passenger seat. “Sorry, Dip-Dop, guess I didn’t dry off enough!”

Dipper threw a bag of chips at her, and grumbled to himself for a few minutes before falling asleep.

“You can go to sleep too, Stan,” Mabel said, looking at him in the darkness.

Stan adjusted his seat to lean as far back as possible without squashing Dipper, and then fished his jacket from the backseat, pulling it over him. And then, on the same impulse from earlier, he looked over at Mabel.

“Thanks for saving my bacon earlier.”

She full-on  _ beamed _ at him, like hearing him say that was the best present she’d ever gotten, and looked like she wanted to hug him but was just barely stopping herself from trying to. “...I’m glad you’re okay, Stan. Really.”

He just pulled his jacket up over his shoulders as best he could and closed his eyes before things could start getting weird again.

* * *

When he woke up, it was a little past sunrise, and he realized that the other two must have split all the shifts instead of making him do one. And for breakfast there were egg, sausage and bacon sandwiches on English muffins that Mabel had grabbed from an early-morning fast food joint, the first hot breakfast Stan had managed to have in months.

And he felt a sudden clenching sensation in his chest as he ate, because while the food was good, he hadn’t realized that it would be even better eating it with two people who not only didn’t want to kill him, but genuinely seemed to  _ like _ him, and cared whether or not he lived to see tomorrow, and made dumb jokes and threw wrappers at each other as they playfully argued, and definitely had their secrets but were still the nicest people he’d met in a long time.

And after they got to Gravity Falls today and took care of this job...they’d be gone, and he’d be alone again.

_ You’re an idiot, Stan. _

_ What’d you haveta go and get attached for? You know better than that. _

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

They’d finally caught up to him.

Or at least, two Squad officers had appeared in front of him and started to inform him that he was under arrest; he’d just smashed their heads together (not too hard; he didn’t want to actually  _ hurt  _ them) and taken off running.

His joints reminded him that they weren’t quite as limber as he used to be, so he couldn’t keep this up forever; he just hopped a fence into a backyard, raced across it, and used a diving board to jump over the next fence, nearly landing on the angry Doberman who inhabited this property and using the adrenaline rush of being attacked by the beast to double his speed.

He had to get to the next dropoff spot and see if everything was still going according to plan; then, and only then, would he surrender himself to the proper authorities.


	9. The best-laid plans of Dippers and Mabels

Another few hours of driving later, the El Diablo arrived in the middle of downtown Gravity Falls, and began maneuvering along its not-so-busy streets.

Dipper was amazed by how much things looked pretty much the same...and yet there were still so many differences that made him do little double-takes as he realized that this building looked newer than he remembered, or that one hadn’t been around that summer when he first came here, or used to be a costume store that didn’t belong to the Northwest family yet.

Even more astonishing were the  _ people _ . The ones that he  _ recognized  _ were all so much younger, more innocent-looking. Probably because they hadn’t been victims of the Society of the Blind Eye, or Weirdmageddon. And wouldn’t ever have to be, if everything went according to plan.

“So, where’s this job at?” Stan asked, interrupting his reverie. It was the first time he’d spoken since that morning.

“We gotta get out of the main part of town,” Dipper told him from the backseat. “Turn left here; that’ll take us up towards the hiking trails.”

Stan dutifully turned in the right spot, nearly avoiding running over a group of jaywalking teenagers who yelled some choice words after them. Dipper wondered if they were the same ones who had given Ma and Pa Duskerton double heart attacks, or if that was further in the future. He absentmindedly made a note about it in the journal, on one of the few pages with room left.

Then he checked the GPS for their next directions.

“Okay, now take a right.”

He scrolled through them as quickly as possible, while keeping the phone on his lap and (hopefully) out of sight. Then he looked up-and felt his heart nearly stop when he saw Stan’s reflection in the rearview mirror, with his eyes apparently trained on him.

Quickly the phone was slid into his pocket.

“...So, you gonna give me the next directions or what?”

Dipper took a deep breath.

_ Calm down; the angle’s all wrong, there’s no way he actually could’ve seen. It’s okay. You haven’t completely disrupted the space-time continuum beyond the amount you’re actively trying to do. _

“Yeah, sorry. Turn left.”

When they reached the trail head, Stan stopped the car. Mabel immediately unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out; she came around to the back, grabbing her and Dipper’s suitcase, and pulled out a small glass tube.

Stan looked at her curiously. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Leaving a message for a friend.” She bounded over to a tree that had a hollow spot, and stuffed the tube inside. Then she came bouncing back. “Let’s go already!”

Stan watched with bemusement as his employers grabbed their final supplies out of their luggage: a large spray bottle full of eerie-looking green liquid, and a hammer.

Mabel hefted the latter onto her shoulder with a determined expression. “It’s go time.”

Stan locked up the car, stuffing the keys into his jeans pocket. “...Real high-tech equipment you got there,” he couldn’t help pointing out dryly.

Dipper raised an eyebrow at him. “I did mention our budget is crap.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stan just started trudging after him as they began to walk.

* * *

Despite Dipper and Mabel’s warnings, there were no signs of the apparently predatory wildlife that lurked around here, and they were able to reach the caves unhindered. Stan  _ did  _ get the feeling that someone or something was following them on and off, but whenever he turned around there was no sign of anyone lurking between the trees. He kept his gun and his switchblades readily at hand all the same.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about being surrounded by forest. On the one hand, it was nice not being surrounded by buildings and piles of trash for a change, and to be breathing in air that didn’t taste like smog. On the other hand, it was so...quiet. Just the wind whistling through branches, and the crunching of twigs under their shoes, and rustling in the grass as rabbits or whatever frolicked or whatever it was rabbits did.

_ If I had ta live out here all by myself, with nothing ta listen to but the wind and my own thoughts, it’d probably drive me crazy after a while. _

Stan couldn’t help feeling relieved when they finally reached the cave, and the kids pulled out a couple of flashlights before stepping inside.

It was a pretty standard cave: dark, colder inside, with a lotta stalactites and stalagmites and dripping water everywhere. They didn’t have to go too far into it before at last, they reached their final destination: what had to be the ugliest painting Stan had ever seen.

“... _ This _ is the big threat to the safety of the world?” he asked skeptically, staring at the picture of the big yellow triangle (which seemed to have people  _ worshipping _ it for some reason? What had the artist been  _ smoking _ ?) with writing in some language he’d never seen before underneath.

He glanced at Dipper-and saw that his expression as he glared up at the painting was one of deadly seriousness.

“Trust me, Stan,” he said softly. “This is the biggest threat to the safety of the world ever.”

Something about the way he said it, and the way their lights reflected on the painting, suddenly made a small chill travel down Stan’s spine.

Mabel passed him her flashlight. “Hold this for me, wouldya?”

Stan took it, noticing idly that it was way better quality than anything he’d seen in the stores, and stepped back to let the kids do their thing.

They looked at each other.

“You ready for this?” Dipper asked.

Mabel nodded grimly. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

With a grunt, Dipper hefted the spray bottle, and began pumping the handle so that green liquid sprayed out onto the rock wall; wherever it touched, it started hissing and smoking, and after a few seconds the painting began to dissipate, the colors blending together and melting down towards the floor.

Mabel cackled gleefully, and then charged forward, swinging the hammer and smashing the head directly into the triangle’s eye.

“EAT IT, YOU POINTY JERK!!!!” she hollered, before ripping the hammer free and doing it again. Large chunks of stone went flying everywhere; Stan quickly stepped back and shielded his eyes so he wouldn’t get any fragments in them. Even as he did, though, he could hear the kids laughing and yelling some kind of incoherent taunts as they continued destroying the picture, until all that was left of it was a pile of rubble covered in interesting colors, and a hammer that was falling apart at the end.

_...If they’re doing this for a professional agency, I’m the Czar of all the Russias. This is  _ personal _. But why the heck- _

And then the worst possible thing Stan could imagine happening, happened.

A voice behind him demanded, “What the devil is going on here?!”

A very familiar voice.

One that made him freeze in place, before slowly, reluctantly turning around, and having his worst fears confirmed.

Because standing in the entryway of the cave, staring at them in aghast shock and outrage...was Ford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoopsie.


	10. Not quite the reunion they were hoping for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newest writing epiphany: Ford's POV while he's still nursing his grudge against Stan is not unlike writing a jealous ex-girlfriend.

Ford had told himself that he was just imagining things when he thought he saw a very familiar red car driving down the main street of town.

There was no way it could possibly be the one he’d thought it was. Stanley had no reason to be in Gravity Falls; he must have just-no, it was  _ not _ wishful thinking, don’t be ridiculous, he just-thought it looked a lot like Stan’s, that’s all. The fact that his heart raced a little at the idea was just out of honest surprise. Really.

But then, as he began hiking home to examine the latest unusual plant samples he’d found, he’d seen it again, driving down the road that led towards the woods, and he’d caught a glimpse of the licence plate as it turned; he’d definitely been able to make out the letters M, B and L on the right side.

Hating himself for his annoying insatiable curiosity, Ford stuffed his samples into his trench coat pockets and then jogged down the only road the car could have taken.

Once he saw it parked at the trailhead, though, whatever doubt remained in his mind vanished. It was older than he remembered, and for some reason had a couple of strips of duct tape on the rear windows and numerous scratches on the paint job, but he knew this car too well to deny it any further.

There was no one inside, and the doors were all locked, so to his annoyance Ford was forced to go back out into the forest in search of his brother.

His irritation only grew the longer he was forced to hike, and the more his questions grew. What was Stanley  _ doing  _ here? And why had he come all the way out here, instead of to Ford’s cabin-not that he  _ wanted _ him to come there, he just didn’t understand why he hadn’t, and why he was forcing him to go traipsing through the woods instead if he wanted to find out-etc, etc.

It was only by the faintest luck that he figured out where Stan had gone: namely to a series of caves that Ford had been considering exploring but weren’t at the top of his list yet because there were so many unusual things in the woods that still remained to be catalogued and learned about.

He  _ really _ hadn’t expected him to be accompanied by two more people around their age, who appeared to be in the act of destroying part of a cave wall.

* * *

For a moment the four of them just stared at each other, frozen; Stan in particular looked like he was about to be hit by a truck.

Ford took another step further into the cave, about to demand an explanation again. However, that seemed to be a trigger that caused Stan to unfreeze-and immediately bolt for the exit.

The young woman who had come here with him dropped the hammer she was holding (why in heaven’s name was she holding a  _ hammer _ ?!) and dived forward, tackling him around the feet-but he didn’t even let that slow him down; he just kicked his shoes off, and continued to sprint away in his socks.

“No! Stan, wait-!” the girl cried, pulling herself up.

Too late; Stan had already dodged past Ford, and disappeared down the side of the hill the cave was on.

The final person-a young man who looked a lot like the girl-swore in frustration, and helped her up, before both of them ran after him.

Ford, in turn, chased after them.

“Who are you?!” he demanded as they began half-leaping down the hillside. “What are you-what is  _ Stanley _ doing here?! Why were you-”

“We don’t have time to explain, Ford!” the boy snapped. “We gotta find Stan before he gets too far away!”

“How do you know my name?!”

Neither of them answered him.

With a growl of frustration Ford struggled to keep up.

Stan had definitely not lost his athletic ability in the amount of time since Ford had last seen him. There was no sign of him when they reached the bottom of the hill; instead, there was an imprint in the ground where something heavy had fallen, before struggling around until it was able to get up. After that, Ford could see the imprint of tracks in the dirt. To his alarm, they were accompanied by small, but increasingly growing in size, splatters of scarlet.

The girl made a worried noise when she saw the same tracks, and looked ahead frantically.

“He can’t have gone too far, right?” she asked the boy-Ford was going to go out on a limb and say that he was most likely her brother.

He nodded grimly. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him. C’mon.”

All Ford could do was hurry after them and try not to choke on his increasing number of questions.

As it turned out, Stan had not bothered staying on the trail; he had, however, left behind a thick enough blood trail that, while it made it easier to figure out where he had gone, caused a rock to form in the pit of Ford’s stomach, especially considering the types of creatures living around here that would be drawn to the scent, and therefore might possibly find Stan before they could.

His companions seemed even more anxious than he was; in fact, the boy drew a  _ handgun _ out of his pocket (what kind of people had Stan gotten involved with?!) and kept it clenched in his hand as they rushed along.

Then things came to a dead end when they reached a small stream, with no sign of the trail on the other side.

Ford groaned inside.  _ He probably remembers every trick from  _ The Fugitive _ , and is using all of them against us. He could be  _ anywhere _ by now- _

“Look!”

The girl was standing about ten feet downstream, and pointing across to the other bank; Ford and the girl’s brother hurried to her side, and saw that a few feet into the brush, there was a bloodied handprint resting on one of the tree trunks.

_...Or maybe he’s too dazed with pain to be focusing on anything more clever than getting away. _

Ford splashed across the stream, and after a minute of searching around he discovered a new trail. He hurried after it.

It was getting close to sunset by the time they found Stan.

By that point Ford’s nerves had been stretched to almost their breaking point, imagining multiple scenarios in which Stan got hunted down by gnomes, or wolves, or cougars, or Killbillies-frankly, the list was kind of endless.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he stumbled into a new clearing...and there was Stan.

His twin was sitting on an old tree stump, muttering an impressive array of words that Ford had never even heard before (and weren’t even in English) but could tell were curses, pulling what looked like a large thorn out of his foot. As he came closer, Ford could make out several more lying on the ground nearby, their sharp ends damp and red.

As soon as he heard their footsteps coming closer, though, Stan immediately pulled himself to his feet again. Ford’s alarm was not helped by the flinch he gave as he got up-or by the fact that he seemed to be putting his weight on his left foot as much as he could.

“Stan, wait!” the girl protested. “Where are you even going?”

Stan glared at her. “Back to my car, if I can find the freakin’ way. As far as I can tell, the job’s done, so you don’t exactly need me anymore, do ya?” And with that he turned and started trying to hobble away.

He wouldn’t even look at Ford.

And despite how angry and confused he still was about what was going on...Ford couldn’t let him get away like this. Not when he was visibly injured, and  _ still _ hadn’t given him answers.

“Stanley, you’re hurt.” Understatement of the day. “At least let me take a look and see if you need to go to the hospital-”

Stan spun around to face him again, expression red with unexpected rage.

“I don’t need your  _ pity _ !”

He practically spat out the word like a curse; Ford was taken aback, and had to stumble for a moment before finding his next words.

“...You’re not going to get very far with your feet in that condition. Especially not the right one. It looks like it might be broken.” He refused to acknowledge the description of pity.

“‘S’ not broken. I’d know if it was broken,” Stan growled. He tried to take another step backwards, and his leg immediately gave out under him, making him stumble with a yelp.

A moment later his companions were on either side of him, grabbing him by the arms and towing him back to the stump.

“Sorry Stan, but this is for your own good,” said the girl.

Stan glared, but finally just folded his arms and stared fixedly at the ground; it put Ford in mind of times when they were young, and their mother would patch up his latest skinned knee or torn shoulder (often while simultaneously scolding him for whatever he’d done to get himself hurt).

Taking that for compliance, Ford knelt down in front of him and began working his torn, bloodstained socks off. They were filled with thorns and stickers, and even a few pebbles appeared to have gotten stuck in the fabric. Once they were off, Ford saw that both his feet had been sliced open all along the bottoms, and the right ankle had swelled up to twice its size and turned a vibrant shade of red.

And even in that much obvious pain, Stan had still run as hard and fast as he could to get away from Ford.

Despite himself, he felt a sick feeling in his gut as he pulled his on-the-go medical kit out of his pocket and started cleaning out the wounds.

Did Stan really hate him that much?

* * *

Dipper kept the gun in his free hand as Ford looked over Stan’s feet, turning his head back and forth to look and listen for any of the forest’s inhabitants.

_ It would suck if we finally managed to keep Bill out of our world forever, only to get eaten by the Hide-Behind or something before we complete step two of the plan. _

A slight throat clearing drew his attention back to this young version of his other grunkle as he stood up, cleaning his hands with a disinfectant wipe.

“His ankle’s not broken, but it is very badly sprained,” Ford said aloud. “And both his feet are in very poor condition. We need to get back to the trail somehow before it gets too dark, so I can treat them better at my house.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “If only I’d remembered to bring my compass, so I could see which way is north-”

“Trail’s that way, about thirty feet into the trees!” Mabel chirped, pointing to the right.

Stan and Ford both stared at her in bewilderment.

“...How did you know that?” Ford finally asked.

She grinned and batted her eyelashes at him. “A woman has her ways.”

Dipper, who had seen the brief glimpse of plastic before it disappeared back into her sweater sleeve, had to hide a tiny smirk.

Ford cleared his throat awkwardly. “...I see.” He looked down at Stan. “You probably shouldn’t put too much weight on either of your feet right now.”

Stan just glared at him defiantly, and pulled himself back into a standing position. “I’m  _ fine _ .” Upon which he immediately almost collapsed again when he tried to walk, forcing Mabel to grab onto him and sling his arm around her shoulders. He made a grudging sound, before allowing her to support him as they started walking back to the trail.

Dipper took it as a good sign that Ford looked genuinely hurt by the snub, before squaring his shoulders and just walking behind them.

Dipper brought up the rear, watching the trees with wary eyes.


	11. It's not that simple, Mabel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve/holiday of preference! Have some angst!  
> (Does that make me kind of like Krampus, since I'm giving you a gift that's mostly just a source of pain?)

It had all been a trick of some kind.

Stan wasn’t sure what _kind_ of trick, and it was obvious that at least the dumb cave painting had been a genuine problem for Dipper and Mabel, but he could tell that they knew perfectly well who Ford was, and they’d therefore most likely known that he was here and might run into them. It almost made him rethink his doubts about them being part of a secret government agency, if they somehow knew all that.

 _...Then what the heck is their angle? What do these jerks possibly have to gain by dragging me out here and making me run into my brother who_ hates _me?_

It hurt that he could admit it so freely.

Heck, it hurt just _seeing_ Ford, and that he looked perfectly fine- _better_ than fine, in fact, he looked like he’d been _thriving_ all on his own, even if he still didn’t remember how to brush his hair and thought wearing long coats in the summertime made him look cool.

Clearly being separated had not been the same kind of agony for him that it had been for Stan.

Mabel kept giving Stan worried glances as they walked (or in his case, limped) back to the path, and began making their way down it towards where the car was parked; he just stared straight ahead, stone-faced, wondering how far he could get if he tried making a break for it. Maybe if he got to his car first-

“Please don’t try to run away,” Mabel said aloud; her grip tightened around his ribs. “I know you’re thinking about it, but please don’t. You’re just going to hurt yourself worse.”

“So what?” He hadn’t intended to ask the question, but it came spilling out regardless. “It’s not your problem.”

She actually stamped her foot. “Yes it is! I care about you, G- _Stan_ , and I don’t want to see you hurt!”

This was about the third time she’d almost called him something that started with G. He vaguely recalled hearing her say it when she’d first attacked him-something like Grumble? Grumble Stan? Was that some kinda nickname she’d given him?

“Yeah, I can tell you and your brother just _love_ me,” he muttered sarcastically.

Mabel got that devastated look again, like the one she’d had back at the motel, and whispered something that nearly had him losing his already-tenuous footing again: “Of course we do. You’re our hero, Stanley.”

As he was still trying to figure out how to respond to that, he was startled out of it by Ford’s voice behind them.

“Stanley?”

He froze up, shoulders tightening.

Ford waited a moment, and then, upon apparently realizing Stan wasn’t going to answer him, he just went on, “...What were you doing in that cave? Why did you destroy that wall?”

Stan’s fists clenched. “ _I_ didn’t destroy jack.”

Dipper spoke up from the back of the group hurriedly. “It was a test run of a new type of dissolving acid invented by our family’s business. We needed a convenient, out-of-the-way place to test it, and the inside of that cave suited our purposes perfectly.”

_Wait, what?_

_What happened to ‘This painting has information that could destroy the world’ or whatever?_

_Since when do people give_ Ford _the dumbed-down answer instead of_ me _?_

Despite his anger, Stan gave Mabel a bewildered look. To his surprise, all she did was shake her head a tiny bit.

Ford made a confused sound. “What-as opposed to a private laboratory? That seems like a far safer place to test an acid, that doesn’t make sense. And what does Stanley have to do with all this? Why do you have a _gun_ -!”

“Dr. Pines, I promise all your questions will be answered soon, but for now let’s focus on making it to your home safely.”

It was enough to shut Ford up. But if Stan still knew him at least a little, he knew that it wasn’t enough to shut off his curiosity.

His mood wasn’t improved as they walked by the fact that his feet could feel seemingly every sharp rock in the path, even through the bandages they’d been wrapped in. It reminded him of the story about the mermaid who got turned into a human, but every time she took a step it felt like knives were stabbing her in the feet.

Heh, the things you remembered from your childhood-like the creepy fairy tales you and your brother would read together while trying not to let your parents catch you.

Speak of the devil, Stan thought he could feel Ford’s eyes on the back of his head as he walked. It took all his self-control not to turn around and look; instead, he just kept limping along, searching for the parts of his feet that hurt the least and putting his weight on them as much as he could.

To his relief, his car was still where he’d left it, and in the same condition. He fumbled his keys out of his pocket, and moved towards the door-but was stopped by Dipper’s hand on his arm.

“You’re not driving in your condition.” He held out his hand for the keys.

Stan was about to snarl-but somehow his desire to fight drained away as quickly as it had come.

He reluctantly handed them over, and allowed Mabel to lead him to the back.

At least by now his feet had stopped the worst of the bleeding, and they’d been wrapped in bandages (which were now pretty dirty, but it wasn’t like he could help that), so he just stretched his legs out as best he could and sighed as he made himself comfortable.

Ford buckled his seatbelt with a firm _click_. “I live at-”

“618 Gopher Road. Yeah, I know,” Dipper said softly, and started up the car.

Despite all the conflicting unhappy emotions working together in his brain right now, Stan managed to smirk at the gobsmacked expression on Ford’s face.

The drive took place more or less in silence, before they finally went up a long dirt road to a huge log cabin in the middle of the woods.

_Figures. He spent all his time in Glass Shard Beach complaining about how hard a time he has making friends, and then when he moves out he winds up living as far away from everyone else as possible. You’re your own worst enemy, Sixer!_

Stan had no idea how much dramatic irony was in that sentence. All he was aware of was how much his feet and ankle were throbbing as he allowed Mabel to tow him up the steps to the front door, where they waited for Ford to unlock it, and then to a bathroom where they set about dressing his wounds properly.

* * *

“Will you answer my questions now?” Ford finally asked as he finished wrapping Stan’s ankle and handing him an ice pack to hold against it.

The strangers looked at each other, having some kind of unspoken conversation, before turning back to him.

“What would you like to know first?” the young man asked.

Ford sorted through his options, finally going with, “Who _are_ you two?”

_How do you know my address? Did Mom tell Stanley?_

The young man started to open his mouth again, but his sister spoke first. “I’m Mabel, and this is my twin brother Dipper! We’re kinda like private investigators!”

Dipper (what kind of a name was that?) looked at her in annoyance, before turning back to Ford.

“We can’t tell you much more than that,” he said quickly. “Sorry.”

Ford rankled a little at the deliberate secrecy, but decided to just move on to his next question, and see if he could work out more details about them as the conversation went on. “Why did you bring Stanley here?”

“We needed-” Dipper began.

But then Mabel blurted, like she was unable to keep it in any longer, “We needed you two to see each other again so you can stop fighting and make up!”

For a second Ford stared at her, gobsmacked.

How-

What the-

What had Stanley told her-

Before he could start with any of those phrases (or some of the less printable ones lurching to the front of his mind), Stan, with a very blank expression, forced himself to his feet and limped out of the bathroom.

Mabel immediately went after him, grabbing his shoulder. “Stan, wait! He still cares about you, I promise!” She glanced over at Ford. “He didn’t mean to break your project, and he’s sorry!”

Stan barked out a harsh laugh and shoved her off. “Oh, _sure_ . He cares _so_ much. So much that I haven’t even _existed_ for him FOR FOUR [ **CENSORED** ] YEARS!!”

The blankness disappeared, replaced by the same seething rage that had appeared out in the forest, as he raised his voice.

“He doesn’t sound particularly apologetic to me.” Ford could feel his own ire rising to meet Stan’s. “In fact, I don’t think he’s sorry at all about ruining my chances-”

“Oh, _boohoo_ , you didn’t get into the college you wanted, so you had to get _both_ your PhD’s at _another_ one, and then move into your _own house_ and have hot running water and food ta your heart’s content! Yeah, I can tell you’re _really_ suffering!” Stan sneered, rounding on him. “Grow up already!”

“Don’t- _grow up_ ?!” Ford couldn’t believe it. “You’re telling _me_ that?! _You_ , with your dumb childish obsession with _treasure hunting_ that made you sabotage-”

“I DIDN’T SABOTAGE IT!”

Neither of them noticed that Mabel had staggered back, and was clamping her hands over her ears, eyes squeezed shut. Or that Dipper put out a hand like he wanted to stop them, but seemed to realize that there would be no stopping them at the moment.

“Why should I believe you?!” Ford hadn’t punched anyone in years, but he was suddenly feeling a compelling need to practice the old boxing skills he’d learned that one summer on Stan now, regardless of his brother’s being already injured. He took a step forward, and only got angrier when Stan didn’t flinch away or show any sign of contrition in the face of his wrath. “Is that why you’re here now? Because you wanted _another_ chance to ruin something for me-”

He was interrupted by Stan bursting into laughter. A high, sharp, bitter sound that came out very wrong compared to the gleeful guffawing that Ford usually associated with his twin. When it ended, he slowly looked up and growled in contempt, “Ya really just think my _whole world_ revolves around ya, huh? Well, get this through your thick skull, _Poindexter_ : I _never_ woulda showed up in this crummy hick town if I’d had _any_ idea I was gonna run into YOU!”

Everyone froze as the echoes of the angry words faded from the room.

Both Stan and Ford just stood there, each of them looking a little shocked at themselves-then, in almost synchronized motion, they each turned and stormed (or in Stan’s case, limped) away. Stan went out the front door, Ford marched upstairs towards what had probably been his study back in these days.

Two doors slammed shut.

* * *

Mabel let out an unhappy wail, and tried to lurch after Stan, but Dipper quickly grabbed her by the shoulder.

“You can’t force them to talk; trying is just gonna make both of them more stubborn. Just give them a little bit to cool off.”

“But-Dipper, I can’t-I can’t _do_ this again.” Tears escaped her eyes unashamedly, and her chest started heaving with misery. “I can’t watch them being stupid to each other again-I can’t. I _can’t_.”

He just pulled his sister into his arms, doing his best to comfort her. “I know. Me neither.”

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

  
“Stanford Pines, you are under arrest for numerous offenses against the laws of space and time, up to and including resisting arrest. Anything you say has already been used against you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worst part of fighting with someone you used to be close to is that you usually know exactly how to hurt each other.


	12. Stan averts the plague

Stan thought about just running for his car and driving as far away as he could get.

...Granted, that probably wouldn’t be very far, since not only was he incapable of running right now, he was almost out of gas, and had no money to speak of, and come to think of it he didn’t even think he’d ever gotten his keys back from Dipper-but still. Every instinct he had was shaking him, urging him to get the heck out of here.

Even as he thought about it, though, and told himself that he could handle the pain in his feet, he’d driven farther distances with way more painful injuries many times...he couldn’t work up the energy to move.

He’d had his worst fears confirmed: Ford hated him and didn’t care what he’d gone through or what had happened to him, even after all this time. All his struggles to try and prove himself and earn the money he’d lost, all his daydreams about being forgiven and going on their boat trip at last: they had all been for nothing.

So...was there really a point to everything he’d done up to now?

Had there  _ ever _ been a point?

Stan buried his face in his arms, and curled up as small as possible, trying to block out everything.

* * *

Up in his study, Ford tried to calm himself down by writing about the day’s events in his journal. He wrote down his questions about why those two strange people had been so adamant about destroying that cave wall (he was no expert on lying, but their explanation just didn’t sit right with him for some reason), and how they could possibly know so much about him and Stan-which of course immediately yanked recollection of the things Stan had yelled at him to the front of his mind.

_ Grow up already! _

_ Ya really just think my  _ whole world _ revolves around ya, huh? _

_ I  _ never  _ woulda showed up in this crummy hick town if I’d had  _ any  _ idea I was gonna run into YOU! _

In a swift, frustrated motion, Ford ended up hurling his journal at the wall, followed shortly thereafter by the pen. A few angry breaths hissed between his teeth, before he just got up and started pacing around the room like a caged tiger.

* * *

In the main part of the house, Dipper and Mabel sat at the kitchen table, having helped themselves to coffee and Pitt cola, and tried to think about what to do now.

“...Maybe we could lock them in a closet until they talk to each other-” Mabel began to suggest.

The look Dipper gave her, however, was enough to stop that sentence in its tracks. She wilted.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out how to speed things up.”

“Just give them a chance to talk to each other on their own. We got rid of Bill, so maybe Ford won’t have as overinflated of an ego this time, and that’ll make it a little easier.”

That was finally enough to make her smile a bit.

Dipper smiled back-and then let out a self-conscious laugh when his stomach rumbled.

Mabel brightened.

“That’s it! Food! We should make them dinner, and maybe getting a good hot meal will help put both of them in a better mood!”

She bounded over to the nearest cupboard, and threw it open to find-

A few cans of soup, one of which appeared to be way past the expiration date, and more coffee.

Mabel frowned in annoyance, and opened the next cupboard.

Several more soup cans, and a couple of tinned peaches, with a half-finished packet of ramen lying folded up in the corner.

Mabel made a disgusted noise. “He still eats like he’s back in college!”

Dipper snickered. “That’s Ford for you.”

Mabel stamped her foot, and then sighed. “Do we have enough money for one more grocery run?”

Dipper checked his pockets. “...Technically yes, but if this doesn’t work-”

“It  _ will  _ work! It  _ has  _ to work!” Mabel took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Maybe one of us should stay here to keep an eye on them just in case.”

Dipper held out his fist, resting on his opposite palm. After a second, Mabel followed suit.

“Winner goes shopping.”

“Gotcha.”

Both of them pounded their fists three times, and then formed symbols: Mabel held her hand out flat, and Dipper extended his pointer and middle fingers like a peace sign.

Mabel grimaced. “...Best two out of three?”

“Fine…”

They repeated the process; Dipper won again.

“You use paper too often,” he said with a smug grin, tugging on one of her highlights before heading out the side door.

Mabel grumbled, and did a little pout.

* * *

Stan vaguely registered when Dipper walked past, got into his car, and drove away into the ever-growing darkness.

Part of him wondered where he was going; the rest shrugged its shoulders and said, ‘Whatever.’

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, staring gloomily at the trees and the ever-encroaching darkness, before he saw something moving in the shadows.

Stan narrowed his eyes, and felt his heart do a little tap dance of panic in his chest as the possibilities surged across his mind: one of the guys from jail one of the people he’d sold a phony product to a cop a  _ real _ FBI agent that jerk who’d tried to steal his car and who Stan had stolen it back from-

As it came closer, he realized that whatever it was, it was too big and scary-looking to be any of those options.

In fact, it was too big and scary-looking to be anything human.

Stan watched in a kind of horrified fascination as the creature walked towards the porch, revealing that it was about eight feet tall, and moved in an odd, jerky way, as if it was standing in a strong wind that kept blowing it back and forth.

Then, as it stepped into the light, he realized that the truth was kind of worse than that.

The figure appeared to be composed entirely of rats.

No, really.

He couldn’t tell if there was anything underneath; it seemed like the entire form was just a bunch of big, red-eyed rats, climbing and scrabbling all over each other, squeaking and chittering all the while.

And then it-or they-spoke, in a chorus of viciously chittering voices:  _ “Finally, we’ve found you at last.” _

_ “You really thought you could escape us, didn’t you?” _ the rats demanded. A group of them worked together to create the impression of an arm rising, and pointing an accusing finger at Stan.  _ “You had the nerve to come to our lair and steal our prey from us, and thought that we wouldn’t find you to enact our revenge! But we are not so easily fooled as you might think, Stanford Pines! We have tracked you all the way to your lair, and now we are going to-” _

The speech was rudely cut short when Stan started snorting with dry, broken laughter, and raised a hand to rub at his tired eyes.

“Yeah, okay, this might as well happen,” he groaned at last.

The giant rats-monster-thing seemed taken aback.

_ “Hey! You can’t interrupt us-we’re trying to threaten you! We’re going to-” _

“I don’t care!”

Something inside Stan abruptly snapped.

“You think whatever you wanna do to me-actually my brother, cuz you got the wrong guy-is  _ any _ worse than what people’ve tried doin’ ta me for the last four years?!”

_ “Wait, what?” _

“You think I haven’t had so many people threaten my life I’ve already lost count?! Or haven’t had people  _ try _ ta show me the color of my insides, or shoot me, or-oh yeah, one time I nearly got thrown off a bridge! And that was  _ after _ I spent six months in jail for just tryna steal a cup o’ noodles!” He threw up his hands in exasperation, and would have started pacing except his feet throbbed in reminder that walking would be a big mistake right about now. “Trust me, sunshine, I’ve seen it all-including plenty of people who’re basically just giant rats in human skin, and they don’t waste time makin’ stupid threats, they just come at you with a knife and try ta gut you where you stand! And do you wanna know  _ why  _ I’ve hadda deal with all that?!”

_ “Uh-do we?” _

“I made one. Dumb. Mistake. Just one-but that was enough for me ta spend the rest of my  _ life _ paying for it!” Stan gave the monster a world-weary glare. “So ya know what? Hit me with your best shot, ya giant plague carrier! There is  _ nothing _ you can do ta me that won’t fix at least  _ one _ of my problems! Cuz I got  _ nothing  _ left ta hold onto!”

For half a minute they just stared at each other, one with shock in its multiple sets of eyes, the other with angry, frustrated challenge.

Finally, though, the rat monster took a meek step backwards.

_ “Um...yeah. It...looks like you’ve got a lot on your plate already. We-we’ll just…” _

Slowly the group of rats began shambling its way back towards the trees, and disappeared.

After a second the screen door opened, and Mabel stepped out onto the porch.

She looked down at Stan with the most sorrowful expression imaginable, and then, without a word, she sat down next to him and pulled him into her arms.

Stan tried to pull away, to shove her off, she’d lied to him and dragged him out here just so he could have his heart broken all over again he didn’t want her touching him-

-but he couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him.

He’d forgotten how it felt.

So after a second he found himself just leaning his head on her shoulder, refusing to acknowledge that he was developing a bit of dust in his eye.

* * *

Neither of them were able to see the upper part of the house, so they didn’t see the way the curtain on one of the upstairs windows slowly flickered shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're welcome, Ford.


	13. Breakfast for dinner is awesome

For once Mabel was quiet.

After a few minutes she let go of Stan, but she continued sitting next to him until the car returned and her brother climbed out, accompanied by bags laden with groceries.

Mabel got up and helped him carry them inside, leaving Stan out on the porch.

Again he thought about trying to drive away-but if he tried the dang kids would probably just come looking for him again because they were stubborn like that.

Instead he wrapped his arms around himself and sat alone in the darkness (situation normal).

When the door opened again, at first he was afraid of who it might be, considering whose house this was, and felt his heart in his throat as he turned to look-

But it was just Dipper.

Stan wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

“Hey, we got dinner ready if you wanna come eat,” he said.

“I’m not hungry-”

Then Stan’s nostrils picked up the scent of bacon, even from all the way on this side of the house. Immediately he pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the pain again, and limped his way inside.

* * *

Dipper recognized Stan’s current attitude all too well. It was his “acting as tough as possible so you won’t see that I’m shattered on the inside” attitude.

It made his heart go out to him, but he just followed him to the kitchen, and watched as he took a seat at the table. Mabel had grabbed a stack of textbooks from the living room, and as soon as he sat down she had him prop his right foot up on them, before putting a bag of frozen peas against his sprained ankle.

“There we go. Comfy?” she asked with a smile.

Stan shrugged. “Just gimme the bacon and I’ll be pacified.”

Mabel beamed at him, and then began bringing everything they’d cooked to the table: pancakes that had been cooked to golden brown perfection, long strips of crisp bacon, perfectly salted scrambled eggs and hash browns.

“I was in the mood to have breakfast for dinner,” she said as she dished up a plate for Stan. “Hope that’s okay.”

“As long as it’s edible I’m fine,” Stan muttered, immediately digging in. Dipper grabbed his own plate and began dishing up a little food for himself-

But all of them froze at the sound of footsteps in the doorway.

Truth be told, Dipper had not expected to see Ford for the rest of the night, at least. And yet here he was, staring with wide eyes at the meal taking place in his kitchen.

Stan stared fixedly down at his plate, and his grip tightened around his fork.

After a second Dipper cleared his throat. “There’s plenty for everyone if you’re hungry,” he addressed his young grunkle.

Ford’s eyes glanced at him, and then back to the food. “...I didn’t have bacon in the house.”

“You didn’t really have  _ food _ in the house,” Mabel said dryly.

A brief sardonic smile danced across Stan’s face.

“I went shopping,” Dipper said, drawing the attention back to him. “Would you like some?”

Ford hesitated, and he was sure that he’d decline and go back upstairs-but then his jaw got a familiarly stubborn clench to it, before he marched over and sat down across from Stan.

Aside from putting even more focus into his meal, Stan gave no indication that he had noticed.

* * *

It was one of the most tense, awkward meals Dipper and Mabel had experienced in years, ever since their grunkles had been reunited the first time, when Ford came back through the portal.

Those meals (which Ford went out of his way to join, proving that all his claims about being happy as a lone hero were just a load of bullcrap) had been filled with silent glaring, passive-aggressive sniping, and several abrupt and disproportionate shouting matches that everyone knew were just parts of the same stupid argument that they couldn’t do anything to stop, despite Mabel’s best efforts.

At least now there was no shouting. But there wasn’t really any conversation either.

Food was just quietly passed back and forth and chewed, and utensils clinked against plates, with the occasional interruption of someone taking a drink from their glass.

Stan’s attention was entirely focused on his food, shoulders tightening every time Ford so much as cleared his throat; Ford kept staring at Stan, or at Dipper and Mabel, and frowning his little ‘you know something that I don’t and it’s driving me crazy’ frown. The younger twins looked across the table at each other helplessly, unsure what to do about all this.

Then, as Stan snatched the final strip of bacon from the pan, Ford finally broke the silence.

“I see you’re still not eating kosher.”

Stan froze for a second. Then his eyebrows knitted together, and he said gruffly, “Nope.”

He lifted the bacon to his mouth and took a big, defiant bite out of it.

“I wasn’t judging you. I was just making an observation.”

“Whatever.”

Ford made a frustrated noise, but then just shoved more scrambled eggs into his own mouth.

The meal returned to silence.

After everyone was finished Dipper began gathering the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, except for the pans that still needed scrubbing.

“Don’t worry about those,” Ford said aloud. “I have something that will take care of them.”

He went over to a drawer, and produced a device that looked like two scrub brushes attached to a pair of large mannequin hands, mixed with what looked like a cannibalized egg beater and a mini computer engine; setting it on the counter, he pressed a button on the side.

After a second it came to life, sputtering and whirring; the hands snatched one of the pans, and began scrubbing it, even automatically dispensing soap from a compartment on its side.

Dipper whistled, despite himself. “That’s incredible!”

Mabel squealed. “It’s so cute!!!!”

Ford smiled thinly. “My friend Fiddleford helped me design it at school. It’s not a perfect model, but it is handy for getting dishes clean. And if you put lighter fluid or something equally flammable in the soap compartment, it can also be used as a literal flamethrower!”

...Dipper was reminded that even in their youth, Ford and Fiddleford had had more than a little mad scientist in their blood.

Stan looked up in surprise. “You made a friend at school?”

Ford gave a startled look at hearing his brother’s voice-which quickly morphed into a somewhat haughty one. “I made  _ several _ friends at school, Stanley. Or at least friendly acquaintances. College was a very rewarding experience for me in that respect.”

Dipper cringed; but it appeared that Mabel was right, and the meal had at least mellowed Stan out enough for him to just shrug and say, “Good job. Told ya you could make more friends if ya just gave people a chance once in a while.”

And he slowly pulled himself into a standing position again, the only indication of how painful this was manifest in the way his mouth twitched.

“Where are you going?” Mabel asked.

“Gonna sleep on the porch. The couch looks pretty comfortable.”

Before he could turn away, Ford said, “There’s a lot of mosquitoes out right now. You’re going to get eaten alive.”

“Why’re you complaining?”

This time the block of emotionless marble Ford had tried to turn himself into cracked. “Stanley...just-there’s a spare room up-” he visibly remembered that Stan + stairs = pain right now, and quickly backtracked- “I have a spare room down the hall. It’s just got a sofa, and we should probably move the shag carpet because walking on it in socks allows you to switch bodies with other people-”

“It what?”

“-but it will probably be more comfortable for you in the long run.”

“I told you, I don’t need your pity,” Stan growled.

But there was less venom in it this time, more weariness.

And despite his words he allowed Mabel to take his arm and walk him down to the place that might someday become Soos’s break room, if events moved in a similar enough way.

* * *

Dipper couldn’t help appreciating the cruel irony a little bit, as Stan settled down on the sofa and reluctantly allowed Mabel to tuck a blanket from the linen closet over him, propping his ankle up on another sofa cushion and placing some more ibuprofen and a glass of water on a table nearby for him.

If they hadn’t interfered, one day he would have ended up lying on this couch anyway, unable to sleep as he let himself be racked with guilt over what had just happened down in the basement.

But it wasn’t going to happen this time.

It couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's a start, right?


	14. Angst with an ambiguous ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, everyone!  
> I would make a resolution to not spend as much time staying up late writing fanfiction, but nobody ever keeps New Years Resolutions.😈
> 
> Have a nice, short chapter instead.

Nobody in the house slept well that night.

* * *

Dipper and Mabel had started to go up to the attic on an automatic impulse, before remembering that they wouldn’t have beds up there, not yet; instead they went to a spot on the second floor that was apparently the spare bedroom in this timeline. Ford raised no objection, just numbly heading for his own room and shutting himself in again once Stan was settled and the dishes were done.

Dipper sat down on the edge of the bed, and stared intently at the journal, trying to figure out if they had missed any potential loopholes in denying Bill an entrance to their dimension, or if they should go back to the caves and destroy any other paintings that might exist there too. He wondered briefly if it would have been better to tell Ford the truth about why they had destroyed the first one, but dismissed it when he remembered how strong his young grunkle’s Big Red Button Syndrome was.

(Big Red Button Syndrome: essentially refers to the fact that if there is a big red button somewhere in the world with a sign attached to it that reads, “DO NOT PRESS. Touching this button will lead to the END OF THE WORLD. THIS MEANS YOU,” there is always some idiot out there who will happily press the button because they can’t take their word for it that that’s what will happen. Sound familiar?)

Mabel, feeling too emotionally drained for anything else, pulled out her needles and some skeins of yarn, and continued working on the (overly optimistic, in Dipper’s opinion) reconciliation sweaters that she was making for her grunkles. Both of them were bright red, with gold decoration; Ford’s had an image of a 38-sided dice on the front, with the caption “Just roll with it,” while Stan’s had a pair of boxing gloves and “Talk to the fists.” And the sleeves and collars were both done in intricate red-and-gold patterns that looked like something off an ancient fancy tapestry.

Dipper had to admit, they were two of her most beautiful creations yet.

Neither of them spoke much; they just sat side by side and worked on their respective projects, until at last they fell into troubled slumber.

* * *

In his bedroom, Ford moved the pile of books off his bed and lay down, staring up at the ceiling, and tried to calm his own troubled thoughts.

Specifically because they were being haunted by not only the words Stan had yelled at him, but the ones he’d yelled at the rat king out on the front porch.

He had to be just exaggerating, right? Or grand-standing just to make the creature back off; he’d always been good at blustering his way out of a difficult situation like that (except when it came to dealing with Pa). There’s no way the last four years could have been _that_ horrific for him, right?

...Except there was no way he could have known that would work on the beast. And his voice hadn’t sounded scared _at all_ -just very angry and defiant.

Heh. That had to be the one normal thing in the whole situation; Stan had always been willing to step in against any bullies who might come after Ford. The fact that this particular bully was a cluster of sentient, hive-minded rats hadn’t been enough to faze him.

Because apparently he’d been dealing with things that were a lot worse-

Ford groaned, and dragged his spare pillow over his face.

* * *

Even after he finally gave in and took some more painkillers, the throbbing in Stan’s ankle was keeping him awake.

He draped his arm over his eyes, sighing in frustration.

Now that he’d had a full meal and had a new comfortable place to lie down, his temper had cooled enough for him to hope that maybe Ford would at least let him stay long enough for his feet to get better.

Maybe that would give him enough time to work up the courage to-

To what?

Say “I’m sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean to, please don’t kick me out again”?

Yeah, Ford was _really_ gonna believe him, after what he’d yelled at him earlier.

_I don’t even haveta try ta shoot myself in the foot. It just happens automatically._

* * *

The prisoner had escaped from his pre-trial confinement cell.

Again.

His guards went searching for him again with world-weary sighs, wishing with all their time-hearts that Time Baby hadn’t been so busy putting post-apocalyptic war criminals on trial today (in three different timelines at once, no less), so he could take this guy off their hands already.

Somehow he’d managed to smuggle in some kind of lock-picking tools, not once, but _twice_.

It would be less insulting if he actually tried to _go_ somewhere, or steal some time tape, or _anything else_ besides just wandering around the corridors of the infinitentiary, only stopping to talk to some of his fellow prisoners and ask them questions about their species or whatever.

This time they found him down on the lowest level, with a screwdriver in hand, replacing a panel in the wall.

As soon as he screwed it back in place, the lights (which had been on the fritz for the last week) flickered to life, and to their surprise the guards thought maybe they could feel their skin getting softer.

One of them lifted his hand, but then had to double over gasping for breath.

“Pines…” he wheezed out, “...you...you are in so much…”

The prisoner slowly turned to face them, smiling an odd little smile.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, gentlemen. But before my trial, I have a request.”

The guards realized, with equally sinking feelings, what it would be before he even opened his mouth again.

“I invoke Globnar.”


	15. Another minor eruption

The next day Stan’s ankle looked better, because at least it was no longer bright red.

It was, however, still swollen up to twice its normal size, until it looked like it had an egg stuffed under his skin.

As for the cuts on his feet, thankfully none of them looked infected when Dipper changed his bandages (despite his argument that he could do it himself), but they were still pretty tender to walk on, and were likely to be so for quite a while.

At a stern glance from Mabel, Stan took some more painkillers, and then held her shoulder as he made his way to the kitchen to get some breakfast for breakfast, instead of breakfast for dinner.

Today there were waffles instead of pancakes.

Ford (surprising everyone by once again joining them at the table) somehow looked even more perplexed than before when one of them landed on his plate. “...I don’t have a waffle iron,” he said aloud.

“Wrong,” Mabel sing-songed. “You _didn’t_ have a waffle iron.” She pointed to the aforementioned item resting on the counter.

Ford spluttered a little...but finally gave up in the face of one more crazy thing in a full list of already crazy things being inflicted on him and accepted that this was his life now.

* * *

At first, it looked like breakfast was going to be basically the same as dinner: silent and awkward.

Stan wasn’t hunching quite as much as he had been last night, but he avoided Ford’s eyes as he ate, and seemed more interested in his next bite of food than anything else.

...Admittedly, Ford’s own stomach was sending him pleased messages about his second home-cooked meal in-in a really long time, but that was not the point! They were both here, together again after four years, was Stan really going to just _sit there_ and not even acknowledge his-

“So what’d ya do ta p_ss off a buncha giant rats?”

Ford would never admit how much the sudden question made him jump in his seat. It took him a second to realize that it had been directed at him.

Stan was still staring at his plate, rather than him, but he’d paused in his eating and looked a little expectant.

“Um-well, I-” Ford cleared his throat- “The rat king had been attempting to create an empire among the forest creatures, establishing themselves as a quasi-deity that demanded living sacrifices from all their subjects. I found out about the barbaric practice and put a stop to it as soon as I could-is something funny?”

Dipper shook his head. “Nope,” he said from behind his hand.

Ford frowned at him, but turned back to Stan.

His brother had tilted his head, eyebrows scrunching together thoughtfully. “...What other kinda creatures are there around here?”

Ford couldn’t help feeling a little trickle of excitement run down his spine. “All kinds. Gnomes, fairies, manotaurs, giant scorpions-I think there might even be evidence of aliens somewhere if I can just figure out where to look for it!”

He would have gone on for ages about all the strange things he had discovered in this last week alone, but he was interrupted by Stan laughing softly.

“Looks like ya wound up in your dream place, Si-Stanford.”

Ford startled to bristle-just what was _that_ supposed to mean, exactly?!-until he got a better look at Stan’s expression.

There was no mockery in his smile; just a kind of soft, quiet warmth, even though he was still staring at his plate instead of at Ford.

...Stan was _proud_ of him for making Gravity Falls his new home.

Ford’s throat suddenly felt a little too tight, and he tried to wash the feeling down with some juice.

* * *

“So,” he asked after he finished his drink, “...Mom said you’ve been running a new business of some kind?”

It was meant to be a completely innocent question. But when he heard it, Stan froze up, and the tines of his fork made a horrible screeching noise as they scraped against his plate.

After a second, Stan shrugged and said quietly, “It’s fine. Been makin’ lotsa dough with it-”

Both of them jumped in their seats when Mabel said, in a disgusted voice, “No you haven’t. It was a complete flop and ended with you getting run out of town by an angry mob. Just like your last seven sales jobs.”

“Mabel!” Dipper snapped.

“No, Dipper!” She pounded her fist on the table. “If they’re gonna talk to each other, they gotta do it without anymore stupid lies!”

“You’re being pushy!”

“I’m just trying to keep him from turning himself into a victim of toxic masculinity again-”

Neither of them noticed when Stan shoved back his chair and lurched out of the kitchen. Ford, however, did-and this time he chased after his brother.

Before Stan could get to the front door, Ford’s hand closed around his arm.

“You got run out of town?”

Stan jerked out of his grasp like it had caused him actual pain. “She doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about! I haven’t been-!”

Ford just folded his arms, and tilted his head. It was a technique that had always worked on the rare occasion when he’d managed to openly catch Stan out in a lie. “I heard what you said to the rat king last night. None of it sounded like the words of someone who’s able to carry on a legitimate business.”

Surprisingly, even after all this time it still worked. Stan’s shoulders slumped, and he muttered through his teeth, “Fine. I’m a pathetic loser who can’t hold down a job. You happy now?”

“...Why the heck would I be happy about that?” Ford demanded. “And I never implied-”

“Why would ya be _unhappy_ about it?! I don’t _matter_ ta you anymore!” Stan accidentally put too much weight on his right ankle, and his face twisted in pain until he leaned off it again. Ford barely made out the next muttered sentence as he turned away: “...Maybe I never did.”

Ford froze in place. Finally he whispered, in a dangerously soft tone, “What?”

Stan didn’t answer. He started to walk back towards the door-until Ford’s hand lashed out and closed around his wrist painfully tight.

“You have _no_ right to say that,” Ford said, still in that soft whisper, even as it trembled with anger (and, admittedly, hurt). “Did _I_ matter to you at all when you broke my machine, and then just _left_ it there for me to find and make a fool of myself in front of the college scouts? That chance meant _everything_ to me, and you couldn’t even-”

“I TOLD YOU, I DIDN’T SABOTAGE IT!” Stan managed to jerk his arm free. “Yeah, it was a dumb mistake I’ve regretted every day o’ my life since it happened, and if I could go back and stop it from happening I would! But I _never_ woulda done that ta you on purpose, and I thought you’d know me better than that!”

“If that’s true, then why wouldn’t you have just told me about it?!” When had Ford started considering the option that it _was_ true?

“ _Because I was a dumb, scared kid who didn’t wanna fight with his brother!_ ”

Before Ford could come up with some kind of rebuttal, Stan’s face, which was already pretty pale, suddenly lost what little color it had, and he began tilting over backwards.

Ford barely managed to catch him in time to keep him from smashing his head into the bookcase, and it ended with both of them awkwardly tumbling to the floor.

“Stanley? What-what’s wrong?!” Ford demanded, shaking his brother’s shoulders; Stan didn’t respond; his head lolled, and his eyes were unfocused.

And then he finally noticed that Stan’s bandaged feet, and the floor which they had been resting on, were both stained with red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, don't look so surprised. You all know how much I love my cliffhangers.


	16. Don’t try this at home, kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains do-it-yourself surgery.

“He’s gonna need stitches if we wanna keep this from happening again,” Dipper said grimly, examining the cuts that had been torn open again on Stan’s feet. He was lying on the floor in the kitchen, with a sofa cushion under his head, his ankles propped up on a chair and the torn flesh held together with butterfly bandages in an effort to keep them from splitting wider.

Ford dug his hands into his hair. “We need to take him to the hospital then-”

“NO!”

Stan nearly lurched upwards, until Dipper forced him to lay still again by pinning his shoulders. After a moment of harsh panting, he reiterated firmly, “No hospitals.”

“You have to!” Ford pleaded.

Stan shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Hospital equals bad idea. Not happening. I’ll stitch ‘em myself if I have to.”

Ford stared at him. “...You can’t be serious.”

“Wanna bet?” Stan smiled mirthlessly. “Nothin’ I haven’t done before.”

Ford’s mouth opened and shut for a second, trying to process that, before at last he said shakily, “Be that as it may, you’re in no condition to perform surgery on yourself-”

“I can do it.”

All of them turned to Mabel in surprise.

She looked unusually grim. “I studied human anatomy last semester, and I’m an arts and crafts expert. I can stitch them up.”

Ford gave her an indignant look. “Those are nowhere _near_ the qualifications for something like this! Stitching someone up is far different from-from sewing a dress or whatever!”

“...But it’s our only other option,” Dipper said with a resigned sigh.

Ford wondered when exactly he had become surrounded by lunatics. “You’re not seriously going to let her-”

“Stan’s right; he can’t go to the hospital, because he hasn’t got the money to pay for it and there’s people looking for him who might find out he’s there,” Mabel said, in a tone not open to argument. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a mini sewing kit. “I have to do it.”

* * *

Ford was only slightly relieved when she took the time to thoroughly sterilize all her equipment, including her hands.

While she did this, Dipper and Ford cleaned out the cuts on Stan’s feet as best they could, along with the chair and the floor, and then Ford got his supply of (rarely used) whiskey out of one of the kitchen cupboards, and had Stan take a few swallows as the best equivalent of a numbing agent.

“Y’better not use thread wi’ glitter in it,” Stan muttered, in a voice that was already becoming slurred.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a lovely shade of purple!” Mabel chirped.

Stan rolled his eyes and muttered something unintelligible.

Finally, Mabel pulled on some of Ford’s spare latex gloves, trying to ignore the way the extra finger flopped around, and then slowly threaded the needle.

Dipper knelt behind Stan and put his hands on his shoulders again.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered softly. “If anyone can do this it’s Mabel.”

Stan didn’t answer. Ford recognized the expression on his face: he was bracing himself.

And then Mabel moved the first pieces of tissue together, and began sewing.

Stan handled the pain better than he would have as a child.

Or at least, he wasn’t as vocal about expressing how much it hurt.

He just squeezed his eyes shut and made a faint, agonized sound through his teeth, and his legs involuntarily twitched but didn’t jerk away like Ford half expected them to.

“Okay,” Mabel said aloud, “I got the first knot tied. Now I’m gonna start pulling the edges together-”

“Kid,” Stan hissed, “you really don’t gotta describe it. I don’t wanna know.”

“Okay, sorry.” She patted the top of his foot and went back to work.

* * *

Part of Ford was curious to watch the process, and anxious to ensure that this young woman really knew what she was doing; he was far from an expert himself, obviously, but he should at least make sure that she wasn’t doing irreparable damage to his brother’s feet.

Instead, though, something led him to reach out and close his hand around Stanley’s.

Stan’s eyes darted towards him, and his eyebrows twisted in a bewildered frown.

Ford just tightened his hold.

A few seconds later his fingers were being squeezed back so tight it felt like his bones were going to start crunching.

He guessed that it was the only way in which Stan felt comfortable expressing how much pain he was in, and didn’t let go.

Mabel was almost finished with the first foot when Stan mercifully slipped out of consciousness.

But even though he didn’t necessarily need to anymore, Ford kept holding his hand.

Mabel kept stitching and tying off and cutting, with only the occasional break to sterilize everything, until the last gash had been stitched shut.

“I wish I had Waddles here to be my nurse,” she muttered to herself while tying off the knot. But then she smiled at the other two, albeit with only a tenth of her usual brightness.

“The patient has been stabilized. You’re welcome.”

Ford nodded, and said quietly, “Thank you.”

* * *

He didn’t notice the surprised looks that the other two gave him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, never try this at home unless you have no other options available.  
> I’m not kidding about this.


	17. Operation Llama is a go

Ford and Dipper mostly-carried Stan back to his room and laid him on the couch; Ford made a mental note to see if he had a spare mattress somewhere in the house they could set up in there as a more comfortable bed.

Stan groaned and dribbled, but didn’t wake up as they tucked a blanket over him, or when Mabel leaned down to place a soft kiss on his unshaven cheek.

Ford wondered idly if they were dating...except they didn’t quite have the same vibe he remembered Stan having with, say, Carla McCorkle.

Then again, what did he know about relationships.

“...Now we just need to keep him from getting up too much or doing anything excessive for a while,” Dipper said, pushing his bangs back to rub at his forehead. For a moment Ford caught a glimpse of something red underneath before his hair draped back in place. “Might as well try to keep night from following day, unless we tie him to the couch or something.”

Ford was perturbed by the way he and Mabel actually seemed to be considering it for a moment-before shaking their heads in unison.

“ _Nah_. We want him to trust us.”

Ford picked up a chair from the other side of the room, and sat down next to his sleeping brother; at least the sleep seemed to be a peaceful one, because Stan had just started snoring away.

Heh. That was familiar to him from childhood; the sound of his brother’s snoring was almost as loud as their father’s from the moment he hit puberty. Of course, Ford’s probably wasn’t much better.

Without really thinking about what he was doing, Ford reached out and took his hand again.

He didn’t notice when the other two slipped out of the room.

* * *

“Okay,” Dipper said as they left the house a few minutes later, supplies in hand, “now we gotta take care of the second part of the plan: Operation Llama.”

Mabel’s grin threatened to split her face in half. “You mean we’re finally gonna break into your girlfriend’s-”

“She is _not_ my girlfriend!” Dipper’s face turned pink.

Mabel gave him the look indicating she had her “skepticals” on. “Which is why she gave you the key to her house, hmmm?”

One hand snagged his shirt collar, before quickly dipping in and pulling out a gold chain hanging around his neck. Dangling from it was an elaborate gold key, decorated with a shape that kind of looked like a weathervane.

Dipper hurriedly snatched it back. “That’s just cuz we needed it for the plan! That doesn’t prove anything!”

One dark eyebrow raised. “Did she give it to you _before_ or _after_ we realized we needed to do this part of the plan, Dipper?”

Dipper’s face reddened even further, and he just looked pointedly away from his sister.

“Let’s just hurry up and get this over with.”

And they began hiking towards town-and from there, to Northwest Mansion.

The hike up the hill the mansion was set on took the better part of the day, so by the time they reached the wall it was past noon, and both their stomachs had started grumbling. But lunch would have to wait until they’d taken care of this.

It was relatively easy for them to get over the wall, thanks to Mabel’s trusty (and somehow still well-functioning after all this time) grappling hook; they landed behind the giant rosebushes that had been used as decoration back then. Dipper had to bite back a cry of pain when a branch that was out of place dug into his arm as he slid past it, but somehow he managed to hold it in.

Once they were on the ground, they peered through the bushes at the enormous lawn in front of them.

An expanse of almost unnaturally pristine, green grass, even back in these days decorated with strutting peacocks and a giant (and probably very expensive) fountain decorating the front, with two massive hedges carved to look like an N and a W.

Dipper shook his head in disgust at the ridiculous display of narcissism, and looked towards the house.

At least back in this era not even the Northwests had the high-tech levels of security that they would later; even so, they would have to be very careful.

Mabel produced two gray squares of cloth out of the pocket of her jeans, and glared at them in focus. A few seconds later they began to grow larger, and shift shape, until they had become a butler’s uniform and a maid’s outfit, complete with a cap and apron.

Thank Moses for multiverse technology sometimes.

“Hopefully nobody catches us out here while we’re still getting dressed,” Mabel said as they hurriedly started changing. “Otherwise we’re gonna have to come up with a really gross excuse.”

“Ugh, don’t say that, Mabel!” Dipper groaned in disgust as he struggled into the pants; thankfully they adjusted to fit his size as he put them on. “It’s bad enough that some people are dumb enough to spread rumors about that even when they know we’re twins.” He leaned a hand on the fourth wall...of the boundary surrounding the mansion, so he could more easily slip into the shiny black shoes.

Finally they turned to face each other again.

“How do I look?” Mabel asked as she finished tying her hair into a neat little bun.

“Your highlights are showing,” Dipper pointed out.

Hurriedly she tucked the pink bangs under her little white cap. “Better?”

“Eh, you don’t have that air of subservience most maids probably have drilled into them by years of crappy wages and no respect, but it’ll do for now.” Dipper gave her a thumbs up, and they shared a brief laugh, before turning towards the house grimly.

“Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incest is gross.  
> End of story.  
> And this is not _Game of Thrones _, people.__  
> 


	18. Takin' care of business

_ Just remember, it’s probably like in the Zorro movie _ , Dipper told himself as he turned the key in the lock of the side door and stepped into the mansion.  _ If you run into them, the Northwests are the kind of people who are too proud to ever look a servant in the eye. And even if they did, they haven’t met you yet so there’s no way they’ll even recognize you. _

“Okay, let’s get to the main hall,” he said softly. “Pacifica checked all the old photographs and paintings she could find, and it’s been there at  _ least _ since Nathaniel Northwest’s time, so it’ll probably be there now.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose. “Maybe keeping that had something to do with him choking himself to death trying to eat an oak tree.”

“Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me that much. Bill’s influenced people to do far crazier things.”

Saying that reminded him of a time when this house was (would be? Dang, time travel was hard sometimes) an entirely different place, thanks to its becoming the home of Fiddleford McGucket after Weirdmageddon ended.

Instead of fancy-looking tapestries, the walls were decorated with the blueprints for his many robots, as well as the disassembled parts from ones he’d worked on in the past in case he ever decided to use them again. He also allowed countless possums, raccoons, giant floppy-eared hound dogs and even a couple of pigs to have the run of the place along with him and his son-not to mention anyone else in need of a home, since the mansion was pretty dang enormous.

And once she was old enough to emancipate herself from her awful parents, that had included Pacifica. Spending time away from their toxic influence, and getting more freedom to be herself, had made her so different from the snotty girl she was when they first met her-even reaching the point where they’d been able to call her a friend.  ~~ And maybe Mabel was kind-of sort-of right about her possibly becoming kind-of sort-of more. ~~

Of course, if things went according to plan-

_ It’ll be worth it. And hey, maybe the timeline will follow a similar enough pattern that things’ll still turn out kind of the same. _

_ Just don’t worry about it. _

Right now, the mansion looked pretty much the way it had when they first came to the fancy gala to try to help the Northwests with their ghost problem and attend the party-with just enough differences to occasionally throw the two of them off as they made their way towards the grand hall. A different carpet pattern here, an unfamiliar painting there. And maybe Dipper was just projecting his own negative emotions onto it or something, but...the house didn’t feel...happy.

Even compared to their current young grunkle’s house, with all the awkwardness and anger that were present right now, it still felt less uncomfortable than this place did.

Dipper couldn’t wait to get what they came for and get out of here.

At last they managed to reach the grand hall, without encountering anyone else. It was a pretty big house, so they weren’t too surprised. They just went into the corner where Pacifica had said-and sure enough, there it was.

An enormous tapestry, done in shades of red, black and gray, depicting people bowing down before a red-eyed triangle.

Dipper felt his fists inadvertently clenching again at the sight, and had to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths before he felt calm again.

When he opened them, he saw Mabel had already sprung into action; she had grabbed a potted plant that was nearby, and was now standing on the edge of it trying to loosen the top of the tapestry.

“Maybe we shoulda-looked for a stepladder or something,” she grumbled, fumbling with the knot at the top as she stretched onto the tips of her toes.

Dipper stepped in just in time to stop the plant from tipping over, and scooted it a little closer to the wall.

“Thanks, bro-bro.” At last she loosened the tapestry...which promptly dropped down onto Dipper’s head.

He shoved it off with an annoyed sound-he didn’t want the demon any closer to his face than necessary-as Mabel hopped down, and then they began folding it up.

“Okay,” Dipper muttered, “now we gotta get to Old Man Northwest’s study and find the book, and then-”

They both nearly jumped out of their skins when a voice behind them demanded, “Just WHAT do you think you’re doing?!”

* * *

“...THIS IS MOST IRREGULAR!” the enormous toddler bellowed with a pouty frown. “I AM OUTRAGED AT YOUR AUDACITY, STANFORD PINES!”

The prisoner looked up at him, not showing even a trace of fear. “But it does comply with the rules of Globnar, doesn’t it? I am allowed to choose whatever opponent I want from the annals of history, and I have.”

Time Toddler (having grown up a little bit during his thousand years regenerating in the polar ice caps) scowled at him, drumming his chubby fingers on the side of his cosmic highchair. But finally, reluctantly, he nodded his bulbous head.

“VERY WELL. AND YOU SAY THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE HIM AT HAND?”

The prisoner reached into the pocket of his uniform and produced a small glass cube (which he had somehow managed to smuggle past the time police. “Literally.”

Then, in a swift movement, he hurled it to the ground.

The onlookers in the stadium gasped as the glass shattered, and a green mist sprang up from the inside; after a second, a dark figure appeared in the middle of the mist, rapidly forming into an old, gray-haired man in a tattered black suit.

For a moment he stood quite still, head bowed, eyes shut, wobbling on his feet a little. Then, slowly, his head raised, and his eyes flickered open...and an unnaturally wide grin spread across his face as he looked at the prisoner standing before him.

“Well, well, well! Looks like you decided to let me out after all, Stanford! Long time no see!”

The prisoner stared back at him with an expression of pure, undisguised hatred.

“Hello, Bill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, sorry, did you think Ford was gonna end up fighting his younger self in Globnar?
> 
> Whoopsie!


	19. Mission Impossible: Northwest Mansion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Did you miss me?
> 
> Don't worry, I've got another chapter here to reward all of you for your patience.

When Stan opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the kitchen.

He was back on the sofa, with his feet propped up on a cushion, and the feeling of something warm wrapped around his hand.

He looked over, and saw that it was another hand.

Specifically, Ford’s hand.

The nerd was sitting in a chair next to him, with one leg up and resting the ankle on his opposite knee, and a book propped up against his calf. The hand that wasn’t holding his was being used to turn the pages as he read, wearing that familiar frown of deep concentration. He didn’t appear to have noticed that Stan was awake yet, and Stan didn’t feel like enlightening him. So instead he just stared at his twin for a moment, and then let his gaze drift up towards the ceiling as he processed the current situation.

He remembered how Ford had comforted him while Mabel was sewing his feet back together, offering silent reassurance that he was there through all that pain. It had been...nice.

So was seeing Ford by his side right now, and feeling him holding his hand, and being able to lie on a comparatively comfortable sofa in a warm, comfortable place.

So Stan was immediately suspicious of how long this was going to last, because he had learned many important lessons since he was kicked out, and the top three were these:

1\. You can’t find gold with a metal detector.

2\. Never date a woman named Karen. And

3\. (The most important one of all) If something good was happening to him, don’t get too comfortable, because the minute he did it was gonna get taken away.

Ford probably just felt sorry for him or something, since he’d been eavesdropping on him and the giant rats the night before and heard about how much his life sucked. There was no chance that the way he was acting (i.e. like he actually cared about him again) was ever going to last beyond the next time Ford got mad at him.

Despite all that, Stan settled more deeply into the cushions and tightened his fingers a little bit around Ford’s, because he also adhered to the fourth important lesson he’d learned during his homelessness: Enjoy the good moments while they lasted.

* * *

“I asked you a question!” said the woman, who Dipper realized was probably the head housekeeper, due to her age (her hair was tied back in a tight gray bun) and air of severity. She put her hands on her wide hips. “What are you two doing?!”

Dipper shook himself out of his paralyzed terror. “M-Mr. Northwest asked us to have this cleaned.”

One prim eyebrow raised. “He didn’t say anything to  _ me  _ about it.”

“It was short notice for us too,” Mabel quickly said. “But he said it was starting to look kinda moldy, so we’d better take care of it right now.”

Dipper could see that the skepticism was still there, and rapidly rising into suspicion as she looked at their faces, probably trying to remember if she’d ever seen them among the staff before.

Time to try another approach.

“Hey, if you don’t believe us, you can go ahead and ask him.” He let himself shrug indifferently. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know you were questioning his orders and stopping us from carrying them out.”

“Yeah,” Mabel chimed in, “I’m sure  _ that’ll _ look good on your reference. If you  _ get _ a reference.”

_ Ooh, ouch. Way to go in for the kill, Mabel. _

But it was worth it for the flash of terror on the housekeeper’s face, before she stood aside and let them walk out of the grand hall, still carrying the tapestry.

“I  _ knew _ that  _ Downton Abbey _ marathon would come in handy someday!” Mabel whispered triumphantly as they hurried upstairs, towards Old Man Northwest’s private study.

The door was locked, but there was no light on underneath, so it was only a matter of seconds to open it, thanks to one of Mabel’s hairpins and an impromptu lockpicking lesson Grunkle Stan had given both of them one day.

Dipper hurried to the bookshelf once they were inside, scanning the shelves anxiously.

_ Green book with gold letters...green book with gold letters...come on, Pacifica said it would be in this part-there! _

He snatched the volume off the shelf, and checked the title just in case-yes, it was part of the personal autobiography of Nathaniel Northwest, preserved specifically for his descendants, that talked about things like the curse cast on them by Wendy’s ancestor which they could have avoided years ago if they had just been semi-decent people...and this one chapter that Dipper managed to frantically flip to.

It was all about this strange yellow triangle that had visited Nathaniel a few times in his sleep when he was a young man, and had a hand in giving him the false title of founder of Gravity Falls (and, if you knew how to read the subtext, had also clearly had a hand in the man’s eventual descent into madness). And the chapter included an inscription he had discovered in a cave, long ago, that helped him to summon the creature in the first place.

Dipper grimly pulled out his pocket knife and flicked it open; in a slow, steady motion he used it to slice the pages out, so neatly you would have to be looking for them to realize they were gone. With any luck people would just attribute the disorganized numbering system to Nathaniel’s usual erratic behavior.

Mabel let out a subdued squeal, clapping her hands in delight, as he slid the book back on the shelf. Dipper grinned back at her as he stuffed the pages into his jacket.

But both of them froze at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall; loud, purposeful ones that sounded like they came from very expensive shoes so they could be heard even when walking on fancy carpeting.

* * *

Dipper looked around the room frantically for an alternate exit; why did there have to be only one door-?!

“Dipper!”

Mabel was already at the window, pulling it open and throwing out the tapestry. Her grappling hook was clutched in one hand.

_ I am  _ so  _ glad we decided to do this together. _

Dipper hurried over, sure that any second the doorknob was going to start turning and not sure what they would do if they got caught before they could end this, he couldn’t wait any longer-

Mabel let the hook catch on the edge of the windowsill, and then grabbed onto Dipper and fell backwards while she pulled the trigger.

It took all the willpower he possessed not to scream; he just held onto his sister for dear life during the terrifying plunge, until he opened his eyes and realized they were hanging safely a few inches from the ground.

“Never underestimate the power of the grappling hook, bro-bro!” Mabel whispered in his ear as she tugged it free.

They turned around to pick up the tapestry-and came face to face with an astonished-looking boy in a pristine gray suit.

For a moment they both just stood there, staring at each other.

Slowly it trickled through Dipper’s panicked mind that this must be little Preston Northwest, who would one day grow up to be the running competitor with Filbrick Pines for World’s Worst Father. And that he was probably seconds away from screaming an alarm, judging by the way his eyebrows were starting to rise and his mouth starting to open.

Before he could figure out what to do about it, Mabel suddenly lunged forward, holding a large hunk of taffy in her hand, and shoved it into his mouth.

The scream was cut off by indignant spluttering as he staggered back, trying futilely to spit out the chunk of sticky candy.

Mable and Dipper didn’t stick around to see if he succeeded; they just ran for the wall and grappled their way back over.

* * *

They didn’t stop running again until they were deep in the woods.

Dipper leaned against a tree, gasping for air with a mix of shocked laughter thrown in.

“I can  _ not _ believe we just did that!” he wheezed.

“And we got  _ away _ with it too!” Mabel gasped. “Oh man, did-did you see the look on Preston’s face?! We should’ve taken a picture to show…”

Her words trailed off with realization about why that probably wouldn’t have worked.

Dipper just smirked a little at the memory, and looked around for a good place to do this next part.

Finally he chose a depression in the ground that was comparatively deep, and he and Mabel gathered a ring of rocks around it, before tossing in the tapestry, and the pages from the life history.

Then Dipper produced an old, worn lighter, and touched the flame to the edge of the tapestry.

It was one of those tapestries that had a lot of oil in the fabric to preserve it better; that meant that it went up in flames pretty quickly.

It was a little risky, since there was a chance the Northwests were on the warpath looking for them, but they stood side by side and watched it burn.

It was just as satisfying as destroying that cave painting had been.


	20. Return of the original Mystery Twins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early Single Awareness Day, everyone-when we celebrate how a man was clubbed to death and decapitated by giving each other flowers and chocolate! What a glorious holiday!

Eventually, Ford looked up from his book on multiverse theory and noticed that Stan was awake.

His brother was staring up at the ceiling instead of at him, but he still flushed, and pulled his hand free-which of course drew Stan’s attention back to him.

For a moment they just stared at each other, awkwardly.

Then Ford cleared his throat. “How-how are you feeling?”

Stan scratched his fingers through his hair, and made a soft grumbling noise. “Like I had my feet sewn together without anesthetic.”

“...That actually happened, Stanley.”

Stan gave him a flat look.

_ Oh. Sarcasm. Right. _

Ford looked down uncomfortably, and rubbed the back of his neck.

A second later he was startled when Stan started pulling himself into a sitting position.

“What are you doing?!”

“Tryna get up. I gotta go use it. That okay with you?” The sarcasm was laced with challenge this time.

“Right, right.” Before Stan could get all the way to his feet, Ford caught his arm and looped it over his shoulders. Stan stiffened up, but seemed to resign himself to being helped the moment he tried taking a step.

It took them a few minutes to make it to the downstairs bathroom. Once they got to the door, Stan glanced at him.

“I think I can take it from here,” he said, pulling free and limping his way inside, before pushing the door shut.

For a moment Ford stood there uncertainly; then he sat down cross-legged on the floor outside the bathroom, drumming his knee with his fingers.

It occurred to him to wonder where Dipper and Mabel were. He hadn’t seen them since this morning, after they finished performing do-it-yourself surgery and helped him put Stan back in his room.

_ Perhaps they went to buy more groceries to put in my fridge _ , he thought with a dry smile. But no, wait, the- _ Stan’s _ -car was still outside, he could see it through the window. If they had gone shopping, it would make more sense for them to drive, wouldn’t it?

_ Interesting...perhaps now would be a good time to do a little investigating. _

The toilet flushed in the bathroom; a few seconds later the door opened, and Stan started to step out.

“Wash your hands,” Ford ordered instinctively.

Stan rolled his eyes, but turned back to the sink. “Okay,  _ Mom _ .”

And for one moment they were teenagers again, and Ford was about to lecture Stan for the umpteenth time about the importance of proper hygiene, while Stan retorted that of the two of them  _ he _ wasn’t the one who needed to be reminded to shower on a regular basis.

But then Ford blinked, and the fantasy faded.

He told himself, as Stan covered his hands in water and soap that he (probably purposefully) splashed all over the sink and the mirror, that the tightness in his throat was just from how strong the smell of the soap was.

“Are you hungry?” Ford asked after Stan dried his hands, suddenly realizing that it was far past noon.

Stan shrugged. “I’m fine.”

_...Yeah, I’m gonna call BS. _

“It’s been a few hours since you last ate. I think you should have some lunch. And some more painkillers.”

Stan’s jaw started to clench with defiance...before it relaxed a tiny bit. “Only if you’re gonna eat too.”

Ford hadn’t expected to have the tables turned on him like that; he hesitated, tried to think of a convincing argument...and then sighed. “Very well.” He stepped over to Stan and pulled his arm over his shoulder again.

“You don’t needa act like it’s some great sacrifice on your part just ta perform basic acts of self-care,” Stan muttered.

Ford chose to ignore him.

Lunch was a simple affair: Ford warmed up a can of soup, and opened a box of saltine crackers to go with it, and gave Stan his medicine and some water. They ate quietly, gazes focused on their plates as they sat across from each other.

Several times Ford nearly worked up the nerve to address the elephant in the room; he even mentally rehearsed ways to get the ball rolling, but none of them seemed particularly good.

_...You really didn’t mean to break it? _

_ I didn’t think you would just disappear. _

_ Why didn’t you reach out if things were going so terribly for you- _

He stopped that one right in its tracks because in hindsight the answer was pretty dang obvious: Stan had been too proud and/or too scared to reach out. Or he didn’t think he mattered to Ford enough to  _ get  _ help if he asked for it.

That realization made an uncomfortable knot form in his stomach, and the cracker in his mouth became very hard to swallow. He forced himself to do so anyway when he saw the concerned look Stan was giving him.

The worst part of it was that there was very little he could say in his own defense on that account.

Instead, he allowed his mind to change the subject back what he’d been thinking earlier: now was the perfect time to do some snooping in his guests’ room.

Ford had finished his soup before Stan did, so after he put his dishes in the sink and turned on the automatic scrubber, he pushed the rest of the saucepan over to his brother’s side of the table.

“You can finish up the rest of that if you want.”

Stan looked up at him with his eyebrows scrunched together. “Where ya goin’?”

“Nowhere!”

He must have said it too defensively, because Stan’s eyes narrowed.

Ford felt his face reddening a little, but just turned and walked out of the room. He didn’t have to explain himself; this was  _ his house _ , he had a right to know what kind of people were living under his roof! Especially when they did things like carry guns and destroy cave paintings for no apparent good reason!

Ford slowly climbed the stairs, and peered through the door of the guest room, half expecting there to be some kind of booby traps set up.

All that he could see, however, was their luggage lying on the floor next to the bed, and a surprising accumulation of yarn spread across the blankets. As Ford stepped closer, he realized that they appeared to be a pair of half-finished, very beautifully made sweaters.

_ Interesting...probably made by Mabel, since every time I’ve seen her she’s been wearing a sweater. But they seem to be made for someone much bigger than her, so who are they for- _

“Not goin’ anywhere, huh?”

Ford yelped, and turned to see Stan leaning in the doorway, arms folded ( _ how the heck did he get up the stairs with his feet in that condition doesn’t that knucklehead care he could have split his stitches?! _ ), and looking a little winded and pained but still standing.

His eyes darted towards Stan’s feet; to his relief, there was no blood visible. The relief quickly turned to annoyance.

“ _ Fine _ , I’m trying to figure out what our- _ my _ guests are hiding! You happy?”

“I’m never happy.”

Before Ford could decide if he was being serious or not, Stan hobbled into the room and knelt down in front of the suitcase; he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapping it around his fingers, and slowly opened it.

“What are you doing?!”

“Lookin’ for the book.”

Ford blinked. “What book?”

“There’s a book Dipper’s always lookin’ at and writin’ stuff in that he seems pretty obsessed with. If anything’s gonna have answers about ‘em, it’s that.” Stan glanced up at him before rifling through the clothes again. “Try checkin’ under the pillows.”

Again, he felt that old, painfully comforting moment of deja vu; he tried to ignore it by lifting up the pillows like Stan had suggested.

Sure enough, a large red book was lying under one of them.

It was old, and ragged, and smelled faintly of millipedes. But that wasn’t what startled Ford about it as he picked it up.

What startled Ford about it was that, aside from the empty front cover, it looked alarmingly like-

Wait a second.

There was a faint shape on the front cover, like something had been glued there once and then ripped off.

Something gold-colored, if the faint traces around the edges of where it had been were any indication.

_...It can’t be. _

“Uh, earth to Poindexter? What’s the matter?”

Ford didn’t respond; he was too busy starting to lift the cover of the book-

Downstairs, the front door burst open, and Mabel’s voice bellowed, “WE’RE HO-OME!!!!”

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

**ROUND 37**

“Gee, this next round sure looks fun, doesn’t it, Fordsie! I’ve always wanted ta race you across a rickety bridge made of clocks over a boiling lake of lava! ...Of course, it’d be an awful shame if I forgot how ta use this old creaky body right, and just happened ta slip over the side, wouldn’t it? Whoa, is it just me or is this thing pretty unstable-whoopsie!”

Stanford barely grabbed Bill in time, hauling him back over the edge-before feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in his shoulder from the sharp chunk of rock the little [CENSORED] had been hiding in his hand. He just shoved him back, and dodged the attempted strike to his kneecap, retaliating by kicking Bill’s legs out from under him. The demon laughed, and lunged at him again.

In the arena that surrounded them, half the crowd booed at yet another moment of the game being interrupted; the other half cheered at another chance to see two old men slugging it out. Clearly, even this far in the future not a lot had changed when it came to people’s feelings during blood sports.

Time Toddler banged one of his toy trucks on his high chair impatiently, and sent two droids to put the two in the penalty boxes. Again.

On the scoreboard above the arena, Bill’s picture had the glowing number 20 under it, while Stanford’s read 17. Bill smirked as he looked at it; in the box next to him, Stanford checked his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t damaged anything important. Thankfully it was just a flesh wound this time, compared to some of the other injuries Bill had given both of them.

The demon glared in disappointment at his enemy’s failure to recognize his infinite superiority in this game, before thinking of another way to bait his attention.

“Y’know, IQ, I think there might be some scraps of Stanley’s mind still left hiding in here somewhere!” Bill made a fist and knocked on the side of Stan’s skull. “You want me ta dig around and see if I can find ‘em?”

Without even looking at him, Stanford made a pointed gesture with his free hand.

Bill sulked, and prodded at one of his own bruises with sadistic interest. After a second, though, he looked back up at Stanford through the force field that separated them with his grin returned.

“You know ya don’t have a chance of winning this, right? I’m gonna get that time wish, and when I do, you’re gonna wish you and your lame-o twin had never been born.” The bright smile evolved into something crueller. “You’re gonna wish it over, and over, and over again, while your world crumples into pieces around you.”

Stanford finally raised his head, looked at him dead-on.

All he said was, “You’d be surprised at how quickly things can change.”


	21. Refuge in audacity

For a moment the two men were frozen in the kind of terror familiar to anyone who’s about to be caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Stan was the first one to unfreeze.

“Put it back!” he hissed urgently, pointing to the journal. “ _ Move _ !”

As Ford did so, Stan launched himself out into the hallway, still half-kneeling on the floor, and gestured for Ford to come after him. Ford followed, looking a little bemused about all this-and immediately Stan seized his arms and forced him to grab onto him, like he was trying to lift him up.

“Get off, I’m fine!” he said loudly.

Dipper and Mabel’s faces appeared at the top of the stairs, both sets of eyes looking wide with alarm (and maybe it was his imagination, but Stan almost thought he could smell smoke).

“What happened?!” Mabel cried; she ran forward and helped pull Stan the rest of the way to his feet. He realized that it wasn’t his imagination: she  _ definitely _ smelled like smoke.

_ I didn’t know you guys were firebugs. _

He let out an irritated-sounding huff, even as his bad ankle twinged and sent a surge of pain rushing up his leg. “Didja pay him ta babysit me or somethin’ while you were gone? I was just takin’ a look around up here, and he had ta come be a total killjoy!”

Mabel’s expression immediately changed to annoyance, and she cuffed the back of his head.

“Stan! What were you thinking?! You  _ need _ to stay downstairs and give your feet a chance to heal,  _ shame  _ on you!”

“I was  _ bored _ , okay?” Stan raised his voice into as much of a pathetic whine as possible as they returned to the stairs. “There’s not even a tv in that room!”

“You know, Stanley, there are these things called books which you could also use to amuse yourself,” Ford cut in. Maybe it was his imagination, but Stan almost thought he saw his brother’s eye close and open again in one rapid motion. ...Nah, it was definitely his imagination.

“Oh,  _ please _ . The day I start reading boring science books for fun’s the day I retire from punching stuff-ow!” Mabel and Dipper had forced him to sit down, and start sliding very slowly down the stairs.

He could almost hear Ford roll his eyes as he retorted, “Believe it or not, I do have other books. In fact, there is a copy of  _ Treasure Island _ in my room; if I get that for you, will you stay in one place for a while?”

Stan came to a halt, making Mabel smack into him from behind, and turned to stare at his twin in surprise. “You do?”

It had been a long time since he’d read  _ Treasure Island _ . But when he was twelve, it had been one of his favorites. I mean, sailing the ocean to a mysterious island in search of buried treasure, and fighting a bunch of pirates to get it? What wasn’t to like about it, besides the fact that some of the vocabulary was a little hard to understand? It confused Stan to feel a small rush of excitement, mixed with a sudden tightness in his throat, at the idea of Ford having it.

Ford’s eyes darted away from his. “...Yes. Is it a deal?”

Stan remembered that he was playing up the whole ‘bored uncooperative patient’ schtick, and rolled his eyes to heaven. “ _ Fine _ , whatever,” he groaned.

“Right. I’ll-go get it.” And Ford quickly turned and headed towards what was presumably his room.

Mabel and Dipper half-carried, half-herded Stan to the room that had been designated as his, and settled him back on the couch. Mabel scolded him again for not taking better care of himself, while Dipper got a bag of frozen peas for his ankle. It was already looking a lot better, but as they reminded him, it would take a while for it to fully heal, and he was absolutely  _ forbidden _ from climbing the stairs again before their say-so.

Stan grumbled and groused about how if you wanted a bad ankle to heal normally you had to walk on it normally, and Mabel retorted with the reminder that his feet were also all stitched up (as if he could possibly forget), and he needed to take it easy for a few days.

And then Ford came downstairs with the book, which he hesitantly offered to Stan.

The tightness returned with a vengeance: it wasn’t just any copy. It was  _ their _ old copy, that had “PINES” written on the inside cover in bright red marker and a blue stain from when they’d been eating popsicles while reading one summer day.

_ I thought he’d’ve left behind anything that reminded him of me. _

Stan accepted the book, muttering something that kind-of-sort-of constituted a gruff “Thanks,” and settled down to reading.

* * *

For a couple of days, all Stan did was lounge around with his book. He’d get up for meals and to use the bathroom, or to walk around a little bit when he got too cramped and stiff, but that was about it. Dipper and Mabel didn’t leave the house again, so even if he or Ford wanted to sneak back into their room they didn’t get the chance. Plus, Stan thought Dipper might suspect something; he caught sight of the journal stuffed in the pocket of his vest as he bustled about the house, meaning he probably carried it around all the time now.

Speaking of Ford, his interactions with Stan were more of the same “awkwardly dancing around each other without actually talking” stuff.

Stan knew it couldn’t last indefinitely, but he was damned if he’d be the first one to break. Unfortunately, it seemed like Ford felt the same way, despite Mabel’s (not very) subtle attempts to get them to talk, the least blatant of which were her constantly asking Ford to come help her check Stan’s stitches to make sure they hadn’t gotten infected (“I’m not a medical doctor, Mabel-” “You’re still a smart science guy, now get over here!”), or to go get another ice pack for Stan’s ankle, the current one was getting too warm, or bring her some nail clippers, she wanted to give Stan a pedicure (which she wound up giving him in spite of his numerous protests; eventually he gave up and focused on his book, ignoring what was going on with his feet).

She never tried to make them talk to each other, or even interact that much beyond just being in each other’s presence, and occasionally making physical contact when Ford would examine Stan’s feet.

It was...like she was trying to get them used to each other’s presence, like a frog in a pot of boiling water.

The question, of course, was which one of them was the frog, and which was the boiling water? And what was going to happen when the water was hot enough to kill the frog? Or was Stan just overthinking the simile?

* * *

And then came the day when Dipper asked Ford if he would like help with one of the things he was trying to research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fully believe that while Stan might not necessarily be the most academically gifted student, he must have a secret love of history and adventure stories. He was familiar with all the historical figures in the wax museum (with Abraham Lincoln somewhat ironically being his favorite), and enjoys old movies. Plus there's, you know, his whole secret dream of being a treasure-hunting adventure-seeker.  
> If anyone's gonna like the book _Treasure Island _, it's gonna be Stan Pines.__


	22. A grand day out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another day of trying not to lose my toes to frostbite, because I'm one of those poor suckers cooped up in the freak Texas snow right now. The worst part is that I'm bundled up under three blankets, wearing socks and big fluffy slippers, and my feet STILL take forever to get warm. It's not fair.  
> ...I'm beginning to suspect that I have bad circulation or something.

Dipper knew he probably shouldn’t do this.

But as complicated as his relationship with Grunkle Ford currently was, he had decided over the last couple of days that this younger version deserved to have something good happen to him, after the three of them had barged into his life and kind of turned it upside down (most of it was for his own good in the long run, but that was beside the point). Maybe getting out of the house in pursuit of something supernatural would help clear his head a little.

Besides, according to the original journals he was supposed to find what Dipper planned on showing him in a year or so anyway, so it wasn’t like he was disrupting the timeline that much. He was just...speeding things up a little.

~~And it wasn’t like he was going to get another chance in this timeline, so he might as well do it while he still could.~~

“Hey, Ford?” (It still felt so weird to leave off ‘Grunkle’ or ‘Great Uncle’ when addressing him, even though they were only a few years apart in age now.)

Ford looked up from his breakfast with curiosity in his eyes; again, just like whenever he looked at Stan, Dipper was briefly thrown off by how _young_ he was. How he could still see signs of the man his uncle would become one day, but so many differences too. For one thing, his eyes were way more innocent, even at their most suspicious or angry.

He quickly collected himself before his staring could give the wrong impression, and said, “Um. You said you’re looking for evidence of alien life in Gravity Falls, right?”

Ford raised an eyebrow over his glasses. “Yes. Why?”

Dipper tried not to be too openly excited. “Because I know where you can find some.”

Mabel and Stan both looked at him in surprise, but Mabel’s quickly turned into a knowing smile and a somewhat resigned shake of her head. Dipper blushed a little bit; now he had zero right to complain if she did something cool for Stan.

Across the table, Ford’s eyes widened...and then narrowed.

“This isn’t going to end with some kind of immature punchline, right? Because I’ve heard more than enough of those, thank you very much.”

“No, this is real!” Dipper promised hurriedly. “I can help you find indisputable proof. We just need a more terrain-based vehicle so we don’t damage Stan’s car.”

“You could steal a golf cart from this one Santa’s Village that’s a few miles from here!” Mabel said sweetly.

Ford gave her an appalled look-which quickly turned thoughtful. “...Well, if it’s in the name of scientific discovery and proving the existence of alien life…”

He didn’t appear to notice how Stan rolled his eyes, or let the faintest hint of a fond smile cross his face.

“Great! C’mon!” Dipper barely took the time to half-throw his dishes onto the counter before sprinting for the door.

“Wait up!” Ford called after him, “I just need to get-”

He rushed upstairs, and came back carrying something large, red and book-shaped.

Even seeing the golden emblem on the cover wasn’t enough to keep Dipper’s heart from racing for a second, but he just patted the side of his vest where he could feel his version (kind of, since he was pretty sure Ford was still on his first journal) comfortably settled.

* * *

The golf carts were smaller than he remembered them being when he’d first learned to drive one, but it was a cinch for him and Ford to snatch one from the Santa’s Village, along with a shovel, and then set off into the Gravity Falls forest.

“I have so many theories, I’m not sure which one I want to be true!” Ford exclaimed, flipping through his journal and scanning some of his various drawings. “So far I’ve been able to conclude that a UFO must have landed here at some point far in the past, based on the formation of the cliffs, but I haven’t been able to figure out if it was able to leave again or actually crashed here, and if the latter, whether or not any aliens survived! The closest candidate for an alien that I’ve seen around here is this giant chicken who occasionally shows up in town, trying to disguise itself as a human; that definitely seems like alien behavior, albeit not very advanced. Is it-no wait, don’t tell me, I want to be surprised!”

For once he had abandoned all pretense of dignity, and was practically bouncing in his seat with exuberance.

 _Is this how he felt when he brought me to Crash Site Omega for the first time?_ Dipper wondered, steering the cart onto another old path that would take them towards the right set of hills.

As he drove, he cast occasional surreptitious glances at his compass. He didn’t honestly need it that much, considering how many times he’d come here since he was almost thirteen, but it would be good for Ford to learn all the tips and tells of how to find this place.

“On foot, this would be about a two-day hike,” he said aloud, watching as the compass needle started to spin.

Ford glanced at the compass sharply. “I’ve noticed that happen before. The pioneers who first found this valley thought it was because it was haunted.” He paused, before adding sheepishly, “...And they weren’t wrong, because there genuinely _are_ ghosts here. But I get the feeling that’s not the reason behind the compass’s magnetic field being thrown off.”

Dipper nodded, and couldn’t help a small, excited grin from stealing onto his face. “You’re not wrong either. You’ll know we’re there when it starts spinning nonstop.”

Ford spent the rest of the journey torn between staring nonstop at the compass, and looking back and forth at their surroundings.

And then, at last, they made it to the top of the hill.

Ford looked around as he stepped out of the cart, his excitement slowly turning to confusion.

“...So where is it? Where’s this proof of yours?”

Dipper couldn’t help himself. “Sometimes, Ford, the strangest things are…” he pulled the shovel out of the back of the cart, and scooped up the earth in what he hoped was the right spot- “...right under our feet.”

To his embarrassment, it wasn’t the entrance. But at least he dug deep enough to reveal the metal hull of the ship; a few seconds later clarity rose in Ford’s eyes, and he scrambled onto the roof of the cart, where he spun around in a circle, clearly realizing that they were now standing on the top of a submerged alien spacecraft.

“Oh, holy _Tesla_ …” he squeaked at last, “we’re on a-we’re on-that means-”

He abruptly staggered, and fell off the cart.

“Grunkle Ford!” The phrase slipped out before Dipper could realize his mistake; he rushed to his uncle’s side frantically. “Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine-ow-” Ford managed to pull himself into a sitting position, and immediately pushed his head between his knees. “I’m just feeling a little lightheaded from excitement, please excuse me a moment.”

Dipper checked him over, making sure that he was unhurt; once he was assured of it, he began looking for the entrance while he waited for Ford’s lightheadedness to pass.

_This is probably why future him marked it with a rock._

* * *

It turned out that Dipper had been off by about a foot; he had to dig around a little more before uncovering it, and then dig the tip of the shovel under the edge to pry it open. As he did this, he saw Ford come up behind him out of the corner of his eye, staring down at the entrance in open and unashamed delight.

“How did you know about this place?” he finally asked, without taking his eyes off the ladder downwards.

Dipper hesitated. “...I found it when I was a kid.” Halfway the truth. “Mabel and I-we used to visit this town in the summer.”

Even though only the first one had been really happy, before everything went wrong. They hadn’t come back until they were fourteen-and despite what they told their parents, it hadn’t been for fun. It had been primarily to think and brainstorm and search desperately for a way to fix what had gone wrong, no matter the cost.

And now they were so close to actually doing it-the last thing needed was for his great uncles to stop being a pair of stubborn jackanapes and put an end to their fighting once and for all-

“Dipper?”

Dipper realized that Ford had been trying unsuccessfully to get his attention.

“Um-what? Sorry.”

“I was asking if there are any aliens.”

“...Not that I know of. I think they’ve all been dead for centuries. But there are some security droids which can be triggered by adrenaline and fear. As long as you don’t react to them emotionally, though, they won’t-” Dipper stopped and groaned. “...And you’re already down there.”

The only reply was the echo of his uncle’s shoes against the rungs of the ladder as he scrambled farther into the darkness.

Dipper sighed, and followed.


	23. The hazards of space paleontology

Ford’s current thought processes, as he climbed into the depths of the giant metal shaft, were a somewhat incoherent combination of  _ ALIENS ARE REAL I’M IN AN ACTUAL UFO THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME _ , and-

No, actually, for the time being that was pretty much it.

Once he reached the floor of the craft, he couldn’t help taking a moment to just gape at the scene before him.

...Granted, it was more decayed than majestic, with everything falling apart and dusty and covered in moss and lichen, but in some ways that just added to the excitement! An ancient wrecked spacecraft, right here in Gravity Falls! Maybe it was even haunted by alien pirate ghosts-!

_ “A shipwrecked sailboat, possibly haunted by pirate ghosts!” _

_ “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen! And I’ve once seen a dead rat floating in a bucket!” _

Completely unbidden, the thought crossed his mind that  _ Stanley would love to see this place _ .

He wasn’t sure if he was more irritated or that-other-emotion-he-didn’t-want-to-admit-to by it. Either way, though, he just cleared his throat and took a closer look at the walls, decorated as they were with strange giant symbols and with massive archways branching out in different directions.

“We probably shouldn’t go too far into the ship right now,” Dipper said from behind him as he reached the ground level. “There’s some stuff farther down, but we don’t have the equipment to get out again, so we’d be kind of stuck-” He let out an annoyed sigh, and smacked his forehead. “ _ Shoot _ , I should’ve asked Mabel if I could borrow her grappling hook!”

_...Mabel has a grappling hook? Did I know that? I don’t think I knew that. _

That train of thought, based around things he didn’t understand about these people, reminded Ford that there was something else he didn’t understand about them: specifically, Dipper’s journal.

There was the very tiniest possibility that its resemblance to his own journal could be a coincidence...except they were in Gravity Falls, a place that didn’t believe in coincidences. Stuff was always weird for a good reason here. And he doubted that asking about it would be a sufficient way to get his questions answered, since so far neither of his guests had been all that forthcoming when it came to questions about themselves...maybe he needed to search for a truth-telling curse he could cast on them to make them spill all their secrets. Or, better still, get another look at that journal. Yes, that definitely seemed like the best plan.

Even as he continued to admire the magnificence of the abandoned craft, wandering into one of the tunnels at random, Ford considered possible ways to make this happen.

Dipper was carrying the journal in his vest all the time now, which definitely made obtaining it harder...he also carried a handgun, so brute force in an attempt to get it was probably out of the question. Ford wanted answers, but not enough to get shot for them. Yet.

Perhaps a sedative of some kind? Odds were that he’d have to use it on both him and Mabel, and the most efficient way of doing that would probably be spiking their food and/or drink...maybe he could volunteer to cook tonight, as a celebration of discovering evidence of actual alien life, and hope Stan wouldn’t point out that his culinary skills had been somewhat lacking when they were teenagers-

“Look out!”

Suddenly hands were on his arms, rapidly pulling him backwards; Ford spluttered and struggled for a moment, until he realized that he had been seconds away from stepping over the edge of a huge abyss, which, granted, had some kind of big metal tube system in the middle of it, but it didn’t seem to have anything you could easily grab onto. His heart raced in his chest as he realized how closely he had come to falling to his death.

Dipper shook his head, and muttered as he turned away, “How the heck did you ever survive to adulthood?”

Fiddleford had actually asked more or less that same question a few times, when Ford had admittedly gone a little overboard in some of his experiments, or gotten so distracted by his books or his thoughts that he’d nearly been hit by a bus (which had only happened  _ one time _ , it wasn’t like he was like that  _ every _ time he crossed the street, but Fiddleford had still kept an eagle eye on him whenever they went across a road from then on, much to his annoyance).

Ford felt his cheeks heating up, and he shoved his hands into his pockets irritably before stomping after Dipper.

* * *

His mood only improved when they wandered into a chamber filled with massive glass tubes, with dead control panels at their sides. In the middle of the room was a long table that probably used to be white, but time and the elements and lichen had turned it a sickly pale green-gray color.

Ford looked around the set of tubes. “This feels like it could be either a cryogenic freezing chamber, or the place where the aliens stored specimens.”

“...Yeah, that’s what I figured too.” Dipper was uneasily examining one of the tubes, which appeared to have been smashed from the inside. There were some faint, dark blue streaks smeared on the opening, and on the floor right in front of the tube. “Do these seem fresh to you?”

Ford stepped over to examine them with him, adjusting his glasses thoughtfully. “Well, if the aliens who this ship belongs to have been dead for as long as you say, it seems unlikely that anything they preserved would have survived this long...unless whatever it was possessed greater longevity than the average Earth lifeform, and could somehow survive the destruction of the preservation chamber’s life support system-”

“Look!”

While Ford was speaking, Dipper had wandered around to another corner of the lab-now he was staring with wide eyes at what, when he came to investigate, he saw was a trio of skeletons that appeared to have been in the middle of an altercation in the moment of their deaths.

One skeleton was significantly bigger than the others, and structured differently, with a skull that looked more mammalian than the other two; perhaps it was the specimen that had been caged? Ford was also interested to note, as he came closer, that all three skeletons had multiple sets of limbs, and their skeletons were a strange black color. It was unclear, without better equipment at hand, if this was due to their having become fossilized, or if that was just their natural bone color; either way, it added to their alien (literally!) appearance. Ford also noted that their fight had clearly been a fierce one: the specimen had its jaws locked around one of the others’ necks, and there were a series of deep claw marks etched into the floor all around them.

“Can you imagine how much NASA would pay for a find like this?” Dipper asked in an excited whisper. “I mean, if you could persuade them to actually believe it was real?”

“It would be worth millions,” Ford agreed; slowly he pulled out his journal, and a pen, and began sketching the skeletons. “Of course, they’d probably want to excavate the entire spacecraft and move it to one of their bases, and you’d have to fight for your claim as the discoverer of the specimen, but in the long run it could-”

He realized too late just how deep the claw marks ran, or how weak the structural integrity of the floor was in this particular spot (probably thanks to the battle that had taken place here). He had scooted just a few inches closer, to get a look at the head of one of the creatures from a different angle-when with a  _ screech _ of twisted, tortured metal, the floor gave way right under him!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You just activated my trap card! CLIFFHANGER OF DOOM!!!!


	24. You can't have your cake and eat it too...most of the time

Ford had one moment of numbness and shock, as he started to fall, and the ancient skeletons briefly smacked into him before falling past him into the darkness; several rib bones scratched his face, and came dangerously close to breaking his glasses.

The numbness was swiftly replaced by a rush of terror, and flinging his arms upwards to scrabble helplessly at the air in search of some kind of handhold, a vine, a ledge, _anything_ -

And a few seconds after that he felt a pair of hands grabbing his arm, bringing his descent to a screeching halt.

“I got you, Ford!” Dipper’s panicked face was staring down at him over the edge of the hole, and his hands were slick with sweat as they struggled to lift him higher. “Give me your other hand so I can pull you up!”

Ford started to lift his other hand-and realized that it was still clutching his journal, that he’d somehow managed to hold onto it even as he started falling. “Hold on! Just let me-” And he began fumbling to close it and stick it back into the pocket of his trenchcoat-

“Just drop the book!”

Ford looked up at Dipper in a mix of horror and indignation.

“I can’t _drop_ it! This is my life’s work!”

“Your life’s work is _not_ more important than your LIFE!” Dipper’s hands almost lost their grip on his sleeve, before he scrabbled frantically to get a firmer hold.

Ford hesitated-and then shoved part of his journal into his mouth so he could reach up and grab with his other arm.

 _Ugh_ , ink and paper tasted disgusting. But it was worth it to feel Dipper getting a stronger hold on him, and then slowly-but-steadily pulling him up to safety.

As he finished clambering out of the hole, Ford saw that Dipper had hooked his ankles around the nearest table leg, keeping him anchored in place while saving him. Judging by his pained wince as he finally sat up, it had not been a pleasant experience.

Ford slowly spat out his journal, and shoved it protectively back into his pocket. “Thank you, Dipper. I-agh!”

He wasn’t prepared for the fist that slammed into his arm. Or the angry red flush on Dipper’s face as he glared at him.

“You nearly got yourself _killed_ over your stupid journal-again!” he shouted, clenching and unclenching his fists, twisting his fingers into angry claws.

_Again? What?_

“You-you are so- _ugh_ , I can’t believe-actually, no, I can totally believe it, but AGH!”

It was a...far stronger reaction than Ford had been expecting. He wasn’t sure whether he felt more startled or indignant or confused by it.

“Dipper, I-”

He was cut short again-but this time, it was by Dipper grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him into a rib-cracking hug.

“...Um…”

Unsure what else to do, Ford awkwardly lifted one hand and patted his shoulder. To his surprise, he could feel the younger man actually _shaking_ against him, and hear his breath shuddering and rasping as he buried his hands in the back of his coat and his face in Ford’s shoulder.

After a few seconds, though, Dipper pulled back; his cheeks flushed with a more embarrassed shade of red, and he became abruptly very interested in the floor.

“Um-sorry, I-I just-” His shoulders sagged. “...You scared me.”

Ford was unsure if he should apologize, or thank Dipper again, or if some other response altogether would be the correct one. And he was a little surprised that someone he’d barely met was that concerned over his personal safety, and he wasn’t really sure how to respond to it.

Before he could choose an option, though, Dipper looked up again.

“...I think we oughta go back now. I forgot how dangerous this place is even without waking up the security droids.”

Ford felt a small crush of disappointment...but Dipper was probably right.

As they got up and began making their way back towards the exit, he couldn’t help feeling his previous buzz of excitement return at being in an actual alien spacecraft, now accompanied by the additional thrill of having narrowly avoided death in an actual alien spacecraft! Next time he would _definitely_ have to bring some safety equipment, though: rope, a lantern (or maybe he’d have to sacrifice his love of antiquity and bring a flashlight instead), maybe a grappling hook like Mabel apparently had-

And, unbidden, the thought entered his mind that it might also be good to bring along a friend, since Dipper had proven that sometimes their help could be invaluable.

* * *

Stan had just finished _Treasure Island_ , and now he was risking Mabel’s wrath by wandering into the living room in search of something else to read while she was making lunch.

His feet felt a lot better, even his ankle (even though it still twinged sometimes when he turned it certain ways), but walking any long distance was still hell on earth for him. Even so, it felt good to get up and move around on occasion-if nothing else, doing it on his own gave him a feeling of autonomy that he’d been deprived of lately.

Most of the books on the shelf were science and physics stuff: bleagh. And autobiographies of guys like Nikola Tesla and Neil Armstrong: comparatively more interesting, but not what Stan was in the mood for. He checked the next row of books-ah, here was the good stuff. Stories like _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ , _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ , _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ , etc.

Since Ford and Dipper had gone to check out an alien spacecraft or whatever, it seemed kinda appropriate for him to choose _War of the Worlds_ next. Feeling like it was basically kismet, he picked it off the shelf, and turned to head back to his room before Mabel could catch him-

And froze when he saw, through the window, a car pulling up in the driveway.

It was a very familiar car-not half as classy as his El Diablo, but then again, not many cars could attain that level of awesome. This one was a little darker, a little more nondescript, and with Oregon license plates that were most likely stolen. It was supposed to be that way, because the people who drove this car didn’t usually want other people to remember them having passed by, in case they might be able to identify them to the police later.

The book tumbled from Stan’s nerveless fingers, and the floor with a thud.

_Oh, sh-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, another cliffhanger! 😁😈


	25. An innocent misunderstanding

Mabel was trying to decide on latkes vs. brisket for the main course, and whether Dipper would give her too much grief for putting glitter in either of them, when Stan came thumping into the kitchen and quickly drew the curtains shut.

“Stan! What have I told you-”

“Ssh!”

Something in his tone was enough to immediately silence her, and she even stretched across the counter to flick the lights off. She saw Stan give her a tiny nod of approval.

“What is it?” she hissed.

“Remember that creep Dipper shot in the kneecap during our trip here?”

“...Yeah?”

_Oh geez, please don’t tell me-_

“He and his buddies found out where we are. And they’re parked right outside.”

No sooner had he said that than they heard the loud _crunch_ of a door being smashed open, and the _clomp_ of heavy boots marching across the threshold.

That was all Mabel needed to hear. She quickly put the eggs and meat back in the fridge, before snatching up the entire knife block with one hand, and grabbing Stan with the other.

“Hey, what-ow!”

But he allowed her to hurriedly tow him out of the kitchen.

Her first instinct was to head for the gift shop-and then to freeze in confusion when she stepped into what she thought was the right room, and there was no sign of the vending machine or the racks of T-shirts or other Mystery Shack merchandise: just more of Ford’s weird research stuff and an empty wall. But then she remembered what point in time they were in, and berated herself for her mistake.

_You don’t even know if Ford has the basement yet, dummy! This was a terrible idea!_

_...Though knowing him, if there was any chance to create a secret hidden basement in his house, he’d take it even if he didn’t have a portal to hide it in. Might as well check._

_If there’s not one, we’re really screwed; we can’t go upstairs, because that’s the mistake dumb people always make in horror movies and then get trapped by the guy in the hockey mask, and they’re probably all in the house by now, or at least surrounding it-_

The wall where the vending machine ought to be had a small knothole sticking out, that looked vaguely like a diagram of an atom if you squinted at it just right.

Mabel jabbed a finger at the knothole, and almost fainted in relief when it gave way under her touch; a second later, there was a soft _click_ as part of the wall, which had blended seamlessly with the rest of it, popped open. She immediately pulled it open the rest of the way, and tugged Stan into the dark space that had opened up.

The flight of stairs was the same as she remembered, but there was no elevator at the end of it; all Mabel could see was a small basement area that Ford seemed to be using as extra storage space, considering the piles of boxes that were stacked everywhere.

_Hopefully that’s all he’ll ever wanna use it for._

Regardless, she quickly pulled the door shut behind them, remembering too late that there were no light switches down here when they were plunged into darkness.

“How the heck did ya know-” Stan started to whisper.

“Ssh!” It was her turn to shush him.

Mabel put her ear to the door, while fumbling around until she found the handle of one of the knives and pulled it free from the block. She didn’t know if any of the thugs would be smart enough to find the entrance, since it was pretty well-hidden, but it was better not to take chances.

_...Maybe if they can’t find us they’ll just go away? No, be sensible, Mabel, they’ll probably wait around for us to come back! You need to think of a different plan-_

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt when she heard footsteps stealthily enter the room, and the sounds of boxes being searched through. Instinctively she reached out for Stan’s arm, and gripped it tightly in the dark.

* * *

Dipper relaxed a little once they were out of the ship, and had pushed a rock over the entrance to mark it for future reference.

“...You know, this ended slightly better than the first time I came here. I nearly got sent into deep space.”

Ford climbed into the golf cart. “Really?”

“Yeah, that’s when I learned the hard way about the security droids,” Dipper admitted as he got in the driver’s seat and buckled his seatbelt. “I tried just suppressing my emotions so they wouldn’t sense me, but...that didn’t work for my freaked out twelve-year-old self.”

It _did_ seem like a lot to expect from someone that young; Ford wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t been capable of doing it.

“Instead, I ended up just getting too mad to be scared of them, and the one that attacked u-me decided the threat was gone and ended up turning itself off.”

“...Wow. That’s really impressive.”

The corner of Dipper’s mouth turned up into a warm smile. “Thanks, man.”

“...You know, I actually had a similar experience once-it was a small misunderstanding with a group of manotaurs.”

Dipper snorted. “You got in trouble with _those_ muscle-heads? Now I wanna hear all about this.”

They continued exchanging stories about their adventures as they drove back to the house; Ford was amazed by the amount of trouble Dipper had gotten himself (and often himself and Mabel) into when they’d both only been alive for such a short timespan, even when nothing supernatural was involved. It reminded him so much of times in his childhood when he and Stanley had gotten into no end of trouble-

Ugh, and there it was again. Even when they weren’t in the same general area, Stan still insisted on haunting him.

Ford knew that sooner or later he would probably have to deal with these complicated feelings he was having regarding his brother, and what had happened four years ago. The fact that they were currently living in the same house, and if Dipper and Mabel were to be believed Stanley had nowhere else to go, made it kind of inevitable. But he had no intention of being the first one to bring it up.

Unfortunately, it looked like Stan had more or less the same mindset.

* * *

He was still half-brooding when they exited the woods to drive into the yard outside his cabin-only to be snapped out of it when the cart screeched to an abrupt halt.

“What the devil-!” But then Ford saw the large car parked outside, and his indignation changed to puzzlement.

He never got visitors, aside from the occasional curious teenagers who wanted to find out what that mysterious scientist out in the woods was doing, or Boyish Dan when he was finishing up more work on his house. And even if they did come here, it was more likely to be on foot-

Dipper muttered something unprintable, and unexpectedly pulled the gun which Ford had forgotten he possessed out of his pocket.

For a second Ford was bewildered, and part of him honestly wondered if his (friend? Sort-of friend?) was a little more unhinged than he’d realized-but then he got a good look at the boy’s face, at the dead seriousness of his expression, and understood that something was wrong.

And then he saw that the front door was open, and swinging loosely on its hinges.

_Stanley!_

In a heartbeat Ford had jumped out of the cart, and was lunging for the front porch, before Dipper’s hands seized his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“Wait! We don’t know how many of them there are, we gotta be careful about this!”

“Who are they?!” Ford demanded, trying to ignore the pangs of inner panic as mental images of unknown persons menacing his brother flitted in front of his eyes.

“I don’t know exactly, just that they’re-”

He cut himself off as a big brute of a man dressed mostly in black stepped through the doorway. Ford wasn’t exactly an expert, but he thought maybe he was Hispanic-at the very least he was olive-skinned, with closely cropped hair and a tattoo on one of his arms, partially sticking out from under his sleeve. And something about him just screamed ‘criminal.’

As soon as his dark eyes landed on Ford, they widened, and he bellowed, “He’s out here!”

* * *

In the blink of an eye Dipper was standing in front of Ford, gun raised and pointed directly at the unknown thug.

“NO.”

His hands weren’t as shaky as they’d been last time he’d had to aim the weapon; he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But either way, he had no intention of letting these creeps take either of his grunkles, and could only breathe a silent sigh of relief that apparently Mabel had managed to get Stan to safety somewhere. He hoped it wouldn’t matter that he only had a few bullets in this thing.

The thug looked alarmed for half a second, but then he just produced his own gun, pointing it back at Dipper in a clearly more experienced manner.

“Don’t make this difficult for yourself, shrimp. We’re just here for him.”

Dipper couldn’t help uttering a small growl. “I don’t care. You’re not getting him.”

Frantically he tried to remember everything Grunkle Ford had taught him about how to aim from far away, and reminded himself that you needed to be careful about the recoil on these things, despite what the action movies said. Maybe if there weren’t too many of these guys he could incapacitate all of them, and then he and Mabel could bring out what they’d decided would be their last resort for these kind of situations-

From behind him Ford let out a sudden, startled exhale; Dipper spun around and saw that man from the motel, holding a large switchblade against Ford’s throat. There was a thick bandage wrapped around his knee, and he did not look happy.

“Miss me, Pinington?” he whispered in Ford’s ear with a savage grin.

If Ford answered, Dipper didn’t get a chance to hear it: something heavy slammed into his skull, and lights exploded in front of his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Dipper's not dead!
> 
> ...Probably.
> 
> Also, I'm not trying to imply that Hispanic people are criminals. I'm sorry if it comes off that way.


	26. Stan gets dangerous

Whoever it was that was searching the room clearly wasn’t too worried about being stealthy; Stan could hear them stomping around like the proverbial bull in a china shop, over the frantic pounding of his heartbeat in his ears, and his and Mabel’s breathing, which sounded way too loud in this tiny space.

 _They must’ve followed my car somehow...do they have contacts in town? The brains to put a tracking device on my car? It’d_ better _not be a tracking device or I’m gonna bash all their heads in, that is my_ lady _and if they messed with her-_

Someone was yelling, off in another part of the house; a second later the guy clomping around the room rushed to the door, and disappeared.

_What the heck?_

Stan limped as close to the door as he could, and pressed his ear against it. He strained his hearing, trying to sense if there was someone still hiding in the room waiting for them to show themselves (you could never be too careful in situations like this).

After a few seconds, though, he heard Mabel whisper in his other ear, “I’m gonna take a look out there. Scoot.”

There was a tapping noise, and then an intensely white light appeared in her hand, lighting up her face before she gently nudged him aside and began examining the doorway they were hiding behind; after a moment she pushed on part of it, and let out a small sigh of relief when it opened again, just enough for her to stick her head out. Stan noticed that as she did, she held one of the knives in her other hand; after a minute, though, she opened the door the rest of the way and stepped out.

Yep, it definitely looked like a bull had been rampaging around the room; boxes had been thrown aside, a statue of some kind of monster lay sprawled across the floor, anywhere someone could potentially be hiding had been ransacked.

_...Ford’s gonna tear his hair out when he sees this mess._

A sinking feeling rose in Stan’s stomach, and he wondered how soon Ford would want him out of the house, now that he’d proved he was not only a pathetic loser who couldn’t hold down a job, but also in trouble with dangerous criminals who had no respect for scientific research. Assuming, of course, that they all got out of this mess alive, instead of getting carved up like Christmas roasts.

After all, there was a reason why the guy who was after him had the nickname ‘Knives.’

Hobbling as quietly as he could, Stan snatched one of the knives from the block Mabel was still carrying-it would only help if he managed to get in close range before any of the goons drew their guns, since they would most definitely have guns, but it was better than nothing-and peered around the doorway.

No sign of anybody down here.

Mabel stepped out ahead of him, edging with the same kind of wariness as him towards the main hallway, and from there to the living room. And then, as she passed the spot where the front door was, she let out a small gasp, and raced towards it.

...That was never a good sign, so Stan hobbled after her-and as he reached the entryway, his blood froze.

The car was gone-not his car, thank Moses, but the one that had first driven up. It had been replaced by a golf cart, standing abandoned and forlorn in the middle of the clearing-and on the ground nearby it, visible even from this distance, was a vivid splash of blood in the dirt.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened.

_Knives and his boys had taken Dipper._

_Knives and his boys had taken_ Ford.

* * *

At first all Mabel could feel was a kind of numb horror as it dawned on her that her brother was gone-not just _gone_ , he’d been _taken_ , by the same kind of jerks who wanted to kill her Grunkle Stan, and if they’d managed to get the drop on Dipper _and_ Ford then what chance did _she_ have-

No.

No, Mabel was _not_ going to fall apart right now, not when her brother needed her most. She was going to pull herself together, and go rescue her family so they could finish fixing this stupid timeline! Power of Mabel, ACTIVATE!!!!

She whipped out her phone again, and quickly opened one of the apps; McGucket had made some adjustments to it, so hopefully even without cell phone towers it would still work, and hopefully those guys wouldn’t have taken Dipper’s phone, or realized what it was if they even found it on him.

_Please please please please please-_

After a second, a small, steady blue light appeared on the map, indicating where Dipper’s phone was. The dot was moving along the road, but at least it was something to follow.

She breathed out a relieved sigh, and stuffed it back into her sweater; as long as she could track him, she could figure out where he was. Now she just needed to go get the car keys to the Stanley Mobile, and a few more things from her and Dipper’s room-

She headed inside, and saw Stan in the living room, trying to put on his shoes.

Unfortunately, even though the swelling in his ankle was almost all gone, he still couldn’t quite make either of his feet fit; the layers of bandages probably didn’t help matters. At last he tossed both shoes aside, followed by his socks, and stood up again, apparently intending to just do this barefoot. He was turning towards the kitchen, when Mabel stepped into his path.

“No. Nuh-uh. You’re staying _here_ , Stan. I’ll go get both of them back, I promise.”

Stan’s eyes narrowed, and he said through his teeth, “You can’t stop me.”

Despite her resolve, Mabel couldn’t help flinching back; the look on his face was a lot like the one the old version (Stan Classic, as she kept thinking of him) had worn when he was facing down a horde of zombies with a baseball bat.

There was no trying to bully or order him around when he was in this state, so she’d have to go with Plan B.

“Stan, please. Think about this.” She held up her hands placatingly. “You’re the one they’re after. You gotta stay here for your own safety.”

Stan just looked at her without speaking.

_...Right, appealing to his self-preservation never works._

“You can barely walk right now,” she tried as a new approach to the argument, “If you get yourself killed cuz you’re not in peak fighting condition, it’s not gonna be any help to Ford.”

“So are ya plannin’ ta just go take them on by yourself?” Stan asked flatly.

Mabel gave him a look that was only partly mock indignation. “What, you don’t think I can do it?” She flexed her muscles. “I’m a god of destruction with a _grappling hook_ , I can take on a few thugs!”

Stan smiled, a little sardonically, but he showed no intention of backing down.

Had she been her old twelve-year-old self, Mabel thought, she probably could have brought out the puppy eyes and pleaded for him to stay put, and _maybe_ it would’ve worked-odds were fifty-fifty over whether he’d let her twelve-year-old self go off to fight thugs alone, since while he was pretty liberal about letting her and Dipper do dangerous things he was also fiercely protective whenever he realized they were in _real_ danger, but maybe it would work better than it was right now.

All the same, Stan hobbled to the big yellow armchair and slowly sat down, folding his hands in his lap in angelic compliance. “Okay, fine, you got a point. Give ‘em all a few good hits for me, yeah?”

Mabel nodded with a relieved smile. “You got it.”

Stan gave her a stern look. “And you better bring Ford back in one piece.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

For a long moment they stared at each other-and then Mabel sighed in defeat.

“You’re not gonna stay put, are you?” She didn’t give Stan time to answer. “Even if I try tying you up or sedating you or whatever, you’re gonna figure out a way to come.”

Stan stood up, dropping the façade immediately. “It’s scary how well you know the way I think, kid.” He limped into the kitchen, and Mabel followed in time to see him grab the dishwashing machine and empty out the soap dispenser. “Now see if ya can find some lighter fluid or something, would ya?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to disappoint you, MotheroftheUniverse, but there will be no spider eggs hatching today. Or anywhere else in the story.


	27. Ford's in trouble (both of him)

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

Time Toddler stroked his chubby little chins, and glowered down at the highly ranked member of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squad (who by now was wishing that he’d listened to his mother and gone to medical school instead) standing before him, encased in the Quiet Time bubble they’d set up around them so as not to let their conversation be heard by the crowd which was here to watch Globnar.

“YOU ARE CERTAIN?”

“Quite certain, Time Toddler.” The unfortunate sucker who was the center of his attention quivered in his boots. “We searched through all his possessions, the ones which we successfully managed to confiscate anyway, and there was no sign of the illegally built time machine, or evidence of where it is.”

“HAVE YOU LOOKED THROUGH THE PINES FAMILY TIMELINE TO SEE IF ANY SIGNIFICANT CHANGES HAVE OCCURRED?”

“We-we’ve tried. But-but there’s some kind of-” he pulled at the collar of his (admittedly awesome-looking) uniform and wished he wasn’t sweating so obviously. “...blockage.”

Time Toddler’s eyes narrowed. “...BLOCKAGE?”

“Uh-yes. Our agents...are unable to locate the Pines family. At all.” He shuffled backwards, like a mouse in the presence of an adorable, terrifying cobra. “They can still travel between timelines, but they can’t track specific time signatures for them-for ten generations before _and_ after Stanford Pines’s birth. So we don’t even know where to start looking.”

For a moment, there was silence.

Then the giant boy let out a roar of frustration that made his highchair come dangerously close to toppling over, and hurled the giant plastic dinosaur in his hand to the ground. Instantly the unfortunate Time Police officer shrank back, expecting to be vaporized on the spot (at least when you joined up they had you fill out your will in case of time accidents, erasure from existence or other types of death, so his affairs were already in order, but it still felt so unfair that he’d never had the chance to make up with his sisters or go to the Grand Canyon or buy a puppy)-but instead, Time Toddler seemed to forget he was there entirely; he just leaned on his chubby fist, and opened the bubble to refocus his attention on the next round of combat.

_What are you and your family up to, Stanford Pines?_ Time Toddler wondered. _What have you done to my timeline?_

Oh, how he wished he’d had a chance to make the old man stand trial before he invoked Globnar; he would’ve _wrung_ the answers out of him, by physical force if necessary. He would have forced him and his toy dinosaurs to kiss and do silly dances until he told him everything he wanted to know.

...As if things weren’t frustrating enough, he mused to himself as he watched the two old men trying to fight off the wild Cyclocks that had been let loose in the arena, Stanford’s current behavior was even more confusing.

He barely seemed like he was trying to win the game at all.

Oh, he’d take his victories over Bill (the one good thing in this whole situation, Time Toddler reflected with satisfaction, was having that jerk triangle at his potential mercy) when they were right in front of him, but for the most part he didn’t seem interested in advancement...so much as in making sure that Bill _couldn’t_. He’d waste precious time stopping the other from moving forward at the cost of a chance for himself, meaning that they’d both lose the round (or get put in the penalty box for fighting) and consequently turning this into one of the longest games of Globnar in history.

Time Toddler glared sulkily as, yet again, Bill tried to throw his host body into danger and Stanford was forced to save him.

It looked like he wasn’t going to be given a chance to nap anytime soon.

**_End of flash forward end of flash forward end of flash forward end of flash forward_ **

* * *

Ford had no idea what was going on.

Some of the wiseacres among you might see nothing new in this; in this particular situation, though, the reason why he had no idea what was going on was because he had a bag over his head, and had been hogtied and thrown roughly into the back of a car, and he could feel Dipper’s limp form lying sprawled next to him, and he couldn’t tell where they were being taken, and every time he so much as twitched one of his hands he’d get a kick in the ribs from one of the people sitting above them.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this scared.

The only thing reassuring him that his would-be protector hadn’t been killed was the fact that he was still warm where he was pressed against Ford, and if he listened over the rumbling of the engine he could barely make out the sound of raspy, shuddery breathing. However, he was pretty certain that Dipper had a concussion, and needed medical attention as soon as possible, assuming that they survived this.

Unlike in the movies, the people who had captured him didn’t offer any context clues about what they wanted with him, or this ‘Pinington,’ whoever that was. They didn’t speak at all, in fact, not even to give the driver directions, so Ford suspected they had a pre-arranged destination.

Somehow that didn’t help matters.

He tried to figure out which direction they were going, but eventually lost track of the number of turns they took, until at last he felt the car come to a stop. A few seconds later he heard the doors opening, before he was grabbed by the shoulder and half-lifted, half dragged out of the car.

Ford felt his feet get cut loose, before he was jerked into a standing position, but then the tip of something cold and metallic was pressing against the back of his skull, oh sweet Moses he had a literal _gun_ to his head! For one humiliating moment he lost strength in his legs, and was able to feel a tiny bit of relief from knowing that he hadn’t had a drink in quite a while, so he wouldn’t disgrace himself further.

“Get moving,” a voice ordered in his ear, and a hand grabbed his shoulder, forcing him forward.

Ford realized that they’d just entered a building-an empty warehouse, judging by the echoes of their footsteps. He couldn’t remember if there was one of those in Gravity Falls; there was an old factory farther down Gopher Road, but this was probably too far away to be there…

Then, with the gun still pressed to his head, his hands were freed, and he was shoved into a chair-only to have them immediately tied to the arms, almost painfully tight, with his ankles quickly following suit around the chair’s legs. Then whoever was doing this to him pulled back, and after some clicking and rustling noises on either side of him the bag was yanked off his head.

There was one thing that fit in with the movies, Ford saw as his eyes adjusted: there was a large light shining directly above him.

He didn’t have time to see if it was one of the building’s overhead lights or a lamp, before his attention was distracted by a voice from the shadows.

“This is your best disguise yet, Pinington.” After a moment the speaker limped into view, and stared down at him.

It was the same man who’d first taken him prisoner back at the house; Ford recognized his voice. This, however, was the first time he actually got to see him face to face.

He was smaller than he’d been expecting, with general dark coloring and a thin, narrow face, as well as very nondescript dark clothes. None of that was what was making Ford break out in a cold sweat, though; no, what was doing that was the long switchblade in his hand.

It wasn’t fancily decorated, and it didn’t have a particularly unique color scheme or anything. It simply looked like it was a knife that had been used, and used often, and the fact that it was in the hands of someone who was standing over him while he was bound and helpless was enough to make it truly terrifying.

The man with the knife continued. “Even your terror without any false bravado backing it up seems real.” He smiled in dark amusement.

Ford spread his hands in his best attempt at a conciliatory gesture. “Look, I-I’m sure this is a big misunderstanding. I’m not the person you’re looking for, and I’ve never seen you before in my life-”

He was cut off by the man snorting and rolling his eyes. “Really? You’re going with the playing dumb card?” He twirled the knife. “That’s okay, I’ll get the truth out of you soon enough. Thanks for opening your hands, by the way-you know I like to start with the fingers.”

Immediately Ford closed his hands into fists, and tried in vain to wiggle free of the ropes.

“Please! My name’s not Pinington!”

The man paid no attention to his pleas; he just turned and gestured to someone behind him, who came forward with a video camera.

“Make sure you get a good shot,” he instructed, before striding forward. He grabbed Ford’s wrist, turning his hand so it caught the light.

“I gave you a chance to do this the clean, easy way,” he whispered; Ford felt a chill of horror run down his spine. “But now the boss wants me to make an example of you. I would say it’s nothing personal, but…” he gestured to one of his knees, which had a thick bandage wrapped around it for some reason, “...you know I’d be lying.”

He gestured to the cameraman, who turned the camera on and gave him a thumbs up, and then forced Ford’s hand open.

...And immediately stopped in confusion when he got a good look at Ford’s large, polydactyl hand.

“...What the he-?”

Before he could finish the epithet, there was a sudden _roaring_ noise from outside, accompanied by the sounds of men screaming.

A few seconds later the door burst open, and a figure came marching into the warehouse.

Ford couldn’t see him too well, thanks to the angle of the light, but he could see that he was limping slightly.

And carrying a device that was spitting out flames at one end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I see it, if Ford wasn't bright enough to decipher what "BATCH OUT FOR WILL" meant, or the letters W, H, A and T on a weathervane, then he's not gonna get the connection between Pines and Pinington easily.


	28. Big dang heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains violence and references to graphic torture.

At first, Mabel had tried to object to Stan being the one driving; the look on his face, however, had been enough to make her meekly climb into the passenger seat, with their assorted weapons on her lap, and mutter something that sounded like “Road safety laws, prepare to be ignored!” just before Stan put his foot on the gas (and ignored the way his ankle twinged).

The drive took far too long for Stan’s liking.

Of course, any amount of time was too long as far as he was concerned, especially when he knew what Knives would do to Ford if they couldn’t get to him in time, so maybe it was just his imagination that it felt like they were driving through syrup.

The whole time Mabel looked at something she was trying to hide in her sleeve that apparently told her the right way to turn, passing the directions on to him; Stan wasn’t sure if she’d implanted a tracking device on Dipper or what, and right now he didn’t care, as long as it got him to Ford before it was too late.

At last, though, they could see the van up ahead, parked in front of what looked like an abandoned warehouse or factory on the outskirts of a town just a few miles away from Gravity Falls.

Stan parked across from it-on the wrong side of the road, but it wasn’t like he cared about that even under normal circumstances-and took the dishwashing machine/homemade flamethrower from Mabel, barely taking the time to turn off the engine and yank the keys out of the ignition before getting out of the car. Mabel followed suit, with her grappling hook in one hand, and the other weapon attached to her belt. Together they marched grimly towards the warehouse.

It appeared that they’d gotten here just in time: at that moment the back door of the van opened, and a guy who looked like a pretty textbook definition of every generic thug ever hopped out, dragging a limp form whose red shirt showed up even from this far away. He dropped it to the ground a few feet from the van, and then pulled something small and metallic out of his shirt, pointing it directly at the form’s head.

Mabel’s arm jerked up so fast Stan didn’t even see it move, until the prongs of the grappling hook had already buried themselves in the man’s arm; she yanked on the thingy that started retracting the line, and sent him crashing to the ground with a shrill scream of pain.

Stan limped on past both the sprawled forms as fast as he could, and hefted his own weapon into his arms again, before looking down at the buttons on the side. There was the on button, followed by ones labelled ‘Scrub,’ ‘Deep Clean,’ and ‘Pyromania!!!!’

...He went with the final one, after turning the doohickey on. The mechanical hands whirred, and stirred themselves to life; out of a small side compartment one of them produced a match, which it struck against the palm of the other hand, and held in front of the nozzle.

Seconds later, with a roar, a flame burst out, and a small triggering mechanism unfolded from the bottom that fit right into Stan’s hand, with a little wheel attached that could increase the length of the flame.

Stan’s lips stretched out into what was technically a smile, in the same way that a wolf is technically a big, shaggy dog.

Behind him he could hear the sounds of the man screaming in pain, as Mabel taught him what happened to people who hurt her brother; it barely registered to Stan, even as a little part of his brain took the time to worry about if Dipper was okay. But Mabel was there to look after him; Ford still needed to be rescued.

Two more thugs came running around the building to see what all the noise was about, and drew their guns when they saw Stan approaching. He just turned the wheel, and vivid orange flames shot out in front of him, sending one of them running in terror and the other one to the ground, screaming and rolling in panic. Had he been wearing shoes, Stan would have taken the time to step on or kick him as he went past; under the circumstances, though, he just stepped around him, barely taking time to turn the flames on his gun for a few seconds and hope that even if it wasn’t hot enough to melt it, it would at least make it too hot for him to pick it up and shoot him in the back. Then he smashed the door open, and stepped into the building.

* * *

It was all one big room, like this place used to be a factory or something, with empty shelves up against the walls and assorted junk scattered across the floor. Despite the state of neglect, he could tell it had been used with relative frequency: there wasn’t a whole lot of dust in the air, and it smelled relatively clean. And in the middle of the room, with a bright light shining overhead that brought them into plain view, he saw the objects of his search.

Ford was sitting bound to a chair, looking pale and terrified; Stan took the time to notice that it had been bolted to the floor at some point, and that it sat right over a drain, and the fury in his veins rose a little more.

Next to him were Knives, wielding his trademark weapon over one of Ford’s hands, and some palooka with a new-fangled video camera. All of them looked very alarmed to see Stan for some reason, as he slowly limped closer and lifted the flamethrower to chest height.

He was about six feet away when Knives snapped out of his shock. Immediately he ducked around behind Ford, and yanked his hair back before sticking the blade of his knife under his chin in a grotesque imitation of an old-fashioned barber.

“That’s far enough, Pinington!” he snapped.

Ford’s eyes darted to Stan with confusion, and then what appeared to be sudden clarity. Stan didn’t pay much attention; he was busy staring at Knives, and saying venomously, “Don’t even think about it.”

The cameraman looked back and forth between them uncertainly for a moment, decided that he didn’t want to be a part of this, and retreated into the shadows.

“Very clever,” Knives said aloud, “finding such an accurate decoy of yourself. I didn’t even realize that he  _ wasn’t _ you until about a minute ago.”

“Yeah, you never were good at noticin’ small details.” Stan used his thumb to turn the wheel a tiny bit, just enough to make the flame a little bigger.

Knives’s hand clenched around the knife more firmly. “Put that thing down if you want this guy to live.”

But Stan wasn’t in the mood for bargaining.

“You know what this thing is?” He allowed his already-naturally-gravelly voice to deepen to a low growl, as his brain raced a mile a minute to pick out the right kind of words. “This is the finest flamethrower ever known to man. It can spit out a length of flame over twelve feet long, with a temperature of over a hundred and fifty degrees.” He really, really hoped that was a high enough temperature to be intimidating. “I know what you’re thinkin’. You’re thinkin’, have ya got time ta cut his throat before I burn your head right off?” He saw Ford flinch the tiniest bit-it was unclear if it was the ruthlessness of his words, or the mental image, or a little of both. “And ya know, I ain’t too sure of the answer myself. Guess you gotta ask yourself-” his eyes narrowed, and he stared down the barrel of the flamethrower right into Knives’s dark, wide eyes- “how lucky do ya feel?”

* * *

There was a long pause, in which Stan could practically see the little wheels of thought and calculation turning in Knives’s brain, with ‘maybe he’s bluffing’ playing tug-of-war with ‘but what if he isn’t’ and ‘oh [censored] oh [censored] there’s an angry man with a flamethrower standing right in front of us’ dancing in the background wringing its hands anxiously.

The hand clutching the knife trembled, letting the blade wiggle against Ford’s throat in a way that had his brother gulping and his hands flexing in subtle panic...and then it moved away, and Knives stepped away from his prisoner with his arms raised in surrender. Stan forced himself not to show his relief.

“I tracked you down once, Pinington. I can do it again, no matter where you go.”

And then he stopped short when he felt something press against the back of his skull.

“You’re not gonna get another chance.”

And then Mabel pulled the trigger of that weird gun thingy with the funny blue lightbulb on the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's always a mixture of terrifying and awesome when Stan decides he's done messing around, isn't it?  
> Even when he's partially bluffing.


	29. Some things are (sort of) explained

These guys were lucky that Dipper was only unconscious, Mabel thought to herself. If they’d managed to kill him, none of them would have left this warehouse alive.

As it was, she had left the guy who’d tried to shoot her brother not only unconscious, but with a smashed nose and his arm broken in at least three places, and the other one by the door had a few ribs “accidentally” kicked in (and both of them would wake up with very indistinct memories about what had happened), and now she was all too happy to make sure the one with the knife would never be able to hurt either of her grunkles again by erasing all his memories of Steve Pinington.

As he slumped to the floor in a confused haze, and she quickly zip-tied his hands together before shoving him face-first to the floor, she promised herself that this would be the last time she used the hateful weapon.

Then she saw the guy with the video camera trying to sneak away, and amended her promise. She would never use the memory gun again,  _ after _ she took care of this other guy who could potentially hurt Stan.

* * *

There was a payphone further down the street. Once her work was done Mabel used it to call the cops and make a report about hearing gunshots over at the old abandoned warehouse, then hung up without giving her name and raced back to the car.

“Let’s get out of here!” she ordered as she jumped into the passenger seat and quickly buckled her seatbelt.

Stan didn’t hesitate before stepping on the gas, and soon enough they were speeding back towards Gravity Falls.

Ford sat in the back, looking like he was in shock (unsurprising, considering what he’d just been through), with a dazed and groaning Dipper lying with his head partly in his lap. The wound from where he’d been knocked out wasn’t too bad, but he definitely had a concussion; on the bright side, his pupils were both the right size, and reacted to light more or less normally, and he was at least awake now, albeit somewhat incoherent and slurring. All the same, when they got home Dr. Mabel was gonna have to give him a  _ very _ thorough check-up.

They had been driving in silence for about ten minutes before Ford finally cleared his throat and asked, in a tone indicating that he was kind of afraid of the answer, “What did you do to them?”

Mabel winced, and thought about trying to come up with another lie...but at last she admitted, “I erased their memories of Stan, and of this whole thing in general.”

“You-” Stan let out a small spluttering noise, and jerked the wheel a little too hard for a moment before taking a few breaths to collect himself. “Y’know, if you’d told me you had the equipment ta do that, I  _ might’ve  _ believed you more easily when you pretended you were Feds.”

“They pretended to be Feds?” Ford demanded in alarm.

Mabel gave Stan a sheepish smile. “We were hoping we wouldn’t have to use it.”

“...You’re not gonna use it on either of us, right?”

Her smile immediately faded. “No.  _ Never _ .”

Something in her expression must have made Stan uncomfortable, because he quickly turned his gaze back to the road.

After a minute, Stan mused aloud, “You know the boss is gonna send more guys after me, right? This is just a temporary solution.”

Mabel, who had done some research with Dipper about who these people might be after that night in the motel, shook her head before she could consider if it was a good idea. “Nuh-uh. In a couple weeks he’s gonna get arrested for tax evasion Al Capone style, and the gang’s gonna get broken up. They’re never gonna bother you again.”

“No...spoilers…” Dipper moaned from the backseat.

But Mabel couldn’t regret seeing the way that Stan, after getting over the surprise of hearing that, relaxed his shoulders a little. So hopefully he’d sleep better at night knowing that at least one of the jerks who wanted his head was gonna be dealt with forever.

After a moment, Ford leaned forward. “Okay,  _ how  _ do you two know that? You keep saying things like that, and doing all kinds of cryptic things without explaining them, and I want to know  _ why _ !”

Mabel was just trying to think of how to answer when Stan said, “My guess is that they’re from the future.”

“...Or they’re aliens or somethin’,” he went on after a moment of stunned silence. “Either way it explains these things.”

He took one hand off the wheel, reached into his pocket, and drew out Mabel’s cell phone, tossing it over his shoulder to Ford, who managed to reflexively catch it.

Mabel spluttered in shock, and tried to figure out when he’d had the time to steal that from her. She counted herself lucky that at least she’d gotten a version with a thumbprint lock, as she watched Ford poking at the screen and staring at the strange device like he was holding the Holy Grail.

“Amazing…” he murmured, managing to hit the button that turned on the main screen picture of her and Waddles with their faces smushed together. “...Is that a pig, or some sort of alien life form?”

“Give me that!” She reached around and snatched it from him, shoving it back into safety in the secret compartment of her sweater sleeve.

Ford let out a disappointed grumble, before his eyes suddenly darted towards Mabel’s hair.

“...Wait a second.”

Before she knew what was happening, he’d grabbed a handful of her curls, and held them up to the light, before lifting up a hunk of Stan’s hair (causing his brother to squirm and complain, “Hey, easy on the merch, I’m driving here!”) and looking back and forth between the two.

“Very similar coloring and consistency of hair...a pair of twins with very familiar mannerisms…” his eyes became wide and starry, “Are you and Dipper our relatives from the future?!”

“No spoilers!” Dipper protested, his voice cracking and slurring halfway through the second word.

Mabel looked down at her concussed twin. “I told you we weren’t gonna be able to keep it from them forever.”

Dipper glared and tried to sit up, but evidently it hurt too much because he quickly sank back down against Ford’s leg. Ford gave him an awkward look, and his shoulder a tentative pat.

Mabel sighed, and looked back and forth between her two young grunkles. “...We don’t wanna tell you too much. We’re probably in enough trouble with the Time Police as it is.”

“With  _ who _ ?” Stan demanded.

Mabel couldn’t help giggling. “The people who enforce the rules of the space-time continuum.” Then, more seriously, “All we can tell you is that we came here to stop something horrible from happening, and we’ve been almost completely successful.”

“...Did it have anything to do with that cave painting you destroyed?” Ford asked.

“Yes, but again, we can’t tell you more than that.” Even though a little part of her wondered if it wouldn’t be good for Ford to get a dose of humble pie by having it spelled out for him that if he had studied that painting, he would have wound up summoning a demon that would manipulate him and destroy the world; Dipper, however, had made it pretty clear that their grunkle’s Big Red Button Syndrome was not to be underestimated.

Stan made an exasperated sound. “Is there anything ya  _ can _ tell us?”

She looked back at the road, and realized, “...You missed the turn.”

Stan swore wearily, and made a U-turn.

* * *

When they got home, she was able to distract her grunkles from the issues of time travel and changing the past and keeping secrets by checking everyone over for injuries.

Dipper was the only one who had anything serious, but Ford had several cuts and bruises that needed to be fixed up (not to mention rope burns around his wrists), and then she had to check Stan’s feet to make sure he hadn’t torn any of the stitches that she’d worked her fingers to the bone to put together; this meant that for an hour or two she was able to avoid further questions with the excuse of needing to focus on what she was doing.

Then, by the time she was done it was late at night, so she and Ford towed Dipper upstairs to put him to bed.

“You’re going to have to wake him up every few hours and try to get him talking,” Ford said as Mabel tucked him in. “Nothing that will make him think too hard, just a light conversation.”

“Yeah, I know how to treat a concussion,” Mabel said, sitting on the bed next to her brother and lightly stroking his bangs. She noticed a small ribbon of drool hanging from the corner of Dipper’s mouth, and grabbed a tissue to clean it off. As she did, his mouth curled into an admittedly goofy smile, and he reached out to wrap his arm around the other pillow, nuzzling his cheek into it and muttering some garbled words that sounded something like, “G’night, Pzzzz.”

_ Not his girlfriend, my foot. _

Mabel could feel Ford still standing there and watching her, so at last she lifted her eyes up to meet his.

Ford flushed, and looked down.

“...Did you want something?” she asked.

“...Thank you. For coming to save us. I doubt we would have made it out alive if you and Stanley hadn’t.”

Mabel managed a small smile. “Yeah, well, I tried to persuade Stan to stay behind so I could handle things myself, but he didn’t listen to me. I doubt anything would’ve stopped him from saving you.”

Ford’s hand came up and automatically rubbed the back of his neck, and his eyebrows knitted together. But at least this time it was in a way that was uncertain, rather than angry or hostile.

At last he just turned, and made his way back downstairs.

...Maybe it was selfish of her, but Mabel hoped that he and Stan weren’t going to make up just yet.

She knew that Dipper would want to be conscious and aware when it was time to say goodbye.


	30. Minor freak-outs, major blowups and medium conversations

In under twenty-four hours Ford had learned that aliens and time travel were real, almost died three times (two of those at the hands of a maniac with a knife), and had his brother come to his rescue with a flamethrower.

He decided, once Mabel and Dipper (it aggravated him to no end that he had so many questions which they were probably never going to answer) were settled in their room, that he needed to take a minute to sit down and process this, and ended up just sinking down at the foot of the stairs and holding his head in his hands as he felt a burst of nausea hit him in the stomach.

_ Get ahold of yourself! _ Ford scolded internally, even as his treacherous body started trembling feverishly and the space between his ribs began to feel too tight.  _ You’ve been in danger before-remember when Steve threw that deer at you and you nearly got hit in the head by one of its hooves? You’re stronger than this! _

The way his breathing continued to heave, and the images of the large knife hovering over his hand that kept flashing before his eyes, said otherwise.

Blanket-maybe he needed to get a blanket, police usually gave one to people after going through something like this, maybe it would help him to stop shivering.

Ford tried to motivate himself to get up and go find one; his body showed no interest in moving from the spot, however, so he just pulled his coat tighter around himself, and rubbed his hands up and down his arms, before squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on his breathing.

_ In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight… _

It could have been anywhere between ten and thirty minutes later before Ford finally felt calm enough to open his eyes again.

The trembling had faded, leaving him feeling drained and exhausted instead; he slumped weakly against the banister and absently nuzzled it with his forehead while examining his hands and reassuring himself that his fingers were still intact.

_ It’s okay. You survived all the dangers unscathed, thanks to people coming to your rescue. Dipper, and Mabel… _

_...And Stanley. _

Ford inadvertently shivered again as he remembered the way the flames had flickered, making eerie shadows dance across his brother’s face as he calmly threatened to burn a man’s head off.

It wasn’t the first time Stan had threatened someone who’d wanted to hurt his brother: Crampelter and his goons, strange kids who gawked at Ford’s hands, one of Cathy Crenshaw’s friends who’d tried to harass him after that disastrous incident-heck, once or twice even grownups who were too nosy had been the victims of Stan’s protective wrath. But in all those cases he’d just threatened to punch their lights out, or some similar threat.

...It was another thing altogether to hear him threaten  _ murder _ in the name of keeping Ford safe. The fact that the flamethrower wasn’t quite as effective as he’d claimed it to be was immaterial; he still sounded like if he’d had to, he could and would have killed the man.

It made Ford wonder if he’d actually had to kill someone before; the idea made all sorts of uncomfortable sensations twist around in his gut.

* * *

After a while, he couldn’t just sit and think about it any further, so instead he got up and went to find his twin.

...Who, of course, wasn’t in his room,  _ resting his injured feet _ , like he was supposed to, like any rational human being would be doing. Instead, he was in one of the rooms which the thugs must have searched when they first arrived, with a broom and dustpan, trying to sweep up some of the mess.

He must have heard Ford’s footsteps, because his shoulders tightened, and he glanced at him briefly before turning away and sweeping with even more fervor.

“That can probably wait until morning,” Ford said at last.

Stan moved to another spot. “It’s okay, I got it.”

“Stanley, you should be resting.”

“I’m fine,” Stan insisted. He knelt down to pick up the dustpan, and held it out to him so he could see that it mostly consisted of the remnants of one of his experiments. “You wanna save any of this ta study later? I know it’s not the same condition, but maybe you can still-”

“ _ Stanley _ .” Ford reached out and grabbed the dustpan, and then snatched the broom before Stan could stumble out of his reach. “Worry. About it. Later.”

Stan’s jaw worked for a moment, before he gave an irritable shrug. “Fine. Whatever.” And he tried to maneuver past Ford to leave the room, but then froze at his next question.

“Why were those men looking for you?”

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that ‘Pinington’ was just a variation on ‘Pines.’ Ford tried to ignore the internal voice poking him about  _ how _ obvious it was.

Stan’s fists clenched a little. “...Doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t-” Ford let out an indignant splutter. “Stan, they were literally going to  _ kill _ me-”

“Yeah, I know!” Stan rounded on him. “I got there as fast as I could, okay?! I  _ wish _ they’d found me first so you wouldn’t’ve had ta go through that!”

And then, with a final glare at Ford, he limped as angrily as he could out of the room, and all the way down the hall to his room. The door slammed after him.

...It took him a minute to realize how grossly Stan had misinterpreted his words. Ford groaned in frustration, and for a moment he just stood frozen with indecision about how to approach this next.

Words didn’t seem like they would be enough to help him communicate with Stan, since he was just going to interpret everything he said as some kind of slight towards him. So what else was there?

Ford hesitated, before finally settling on a possible plan of action: he headed to the kitchen, and then the fridge, where he selected two cans of Pitt cola. He carried them back to Stan’s room, and knocked tentatively.

There was no response, but after a minute he opened it and went in anyway.

Stan was lying on the sofa with his back to him and the blankets pulled up over his head; that at least was familiar behavior. Sometimes when he was a kid, when he was in big trouble and too upset to deal with the real world, he’d just hide under his blankets until he felt better. Seeing it now caused a weird mixture of fondness and sadness to stir in Ford’s stomach.

He coughed softly, trying to get Stan’s attention.

No response.

Then, remembering that this was Stan he was dealing with, Ford poked the spot that looked like Stan’s head to make sure it was really him, instead of a cleverly disguised pillow or something.

It shuffled, and his brother’s voice muttered, “Bug off.”

“May I sit?” Ford chose to ignore the demand.

“...It’s your house, you can do whatever ya want,” Stan muttered belligerently into the back of the couch.

Ford sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him, and popped the tab on his soda, taking a small sip.

The noise seemed like enough to make curiosity win out over belligerence; Stan slowly shuffled around until he was facing the right direction, and then pulled down the blanket enough for his eyes to show.

Ford just looked at him, and offered the other can.

After a moment, Stan sat up and took it from him; he opened it with his thumb, and gulped down a mouthful. His expression was still tense, but a little bit of the hostility had faded. Ford counted that as progress enough for him to get up and sit down on the couch next to him. Stan stiffened, but didn’t object; maybe he appreciated that it enabled them to avoid eye contact.

* * *

For a solid minute neither of them spoke. They just sat and drank their soda and pretended to be interested in the wall on the other side of the room.

Finally, though, Stan sighed, and his shoulders drooped.

“...I know I ruined everything. I shoulda told you what happened to your machine, instead of tryna fix it myself and hopin’ it would work. I’m sorry.”

Ford hadn’t realized how long he’d been waiting to hear those words. Not necessarily the first sentence, which even he could admit (especially after learning what Stan’s life had been like ever since he was kicked out) was being too hard on himself, but...the rest of it. It eased a knot in his soul that had been growing and festering ever since he found the empty bag of toffee peanuts.

“...You tried to fix it?”

Stan’s chin dipped down slightly, but he didn’t elaborate.

Ford decided that for now, at least, it didn’t matter.

“...I went looking for you, after I cooled down a bit.”

Stan startled, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “...You did?”

Ford’s heart broke a little at the genuine  _ surprise _ in his voice.  _ He really didn’t think that I cared about him anymore. _ “Yeah, I did. Everywhere I thought you might be. But when I couldn’t find any traces of you, and when I saw what you’d done to our boat-” Stan flinched- “I...decided it was easier to just stay mad. But...I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have shut the curtains on you either.”

Stan didn’t answer; he stared down at his soda, chewing on his lip quietly.

Ford swallowed, and admitted, “It never really sat right with me, Pa already having a bag packed.”

Stan’s hand clenched around the can; he could hear the crackle and pop of the aluminum from the amount of tension he was putting it under.

“...And I can’t help wondering sometimes...do you think he had a bag for me too?”

Stan snorted bitterly. “You kidding? Pa  _ likes _ you.”

Ford tried to think of a good rebuttal.

“He...respects my intelligence, at least...but what if I hadn’t gotten into West Coast Tech even with my project intact? What if they’d rejected me anyway? After you-” Ford cleared his throat- “that was all I could think, that I had to measure up to expectations because if I didn’t…” Put that way, though, it sounded incredibly self-serving; fresh shame bubbled up in his chest. “I...I never imagined you’d be put in situations where you’d have people try to...hurt you on a regular basis.”  _ Or where you might have had to kill someone. But we can talk about that later. _

Stan shrugged. “Kinda hard ta get any decent jobs with people who  _ won’t  _ wanna hurt you if you step outta line when you don’t have an address.”

“I have an address.”

The words came out unbidden, but Ford realized that he meant them.

For the first time in this whole conversation Stan looked at him dead-on, looking flabbergasted.

“You could stay here, get a job to help you get back on your feet.” He glanced down at Stan’s feet. “Literally.”

There was a small gulping noise, and he looked up to see Stan gaping at him like a goldfish. He stammered, looked down uncertainly, scratched the back of his head.

“Um-I-that’s-nah, I-y-you don’t really wanna-”

And then they were both nearly deafened by a horrible blaring noise from the doorway, followed by Mabel’s voice yelling at the top of her lungs, “TOXIC MASCULINITY ALERT!!!!”

* * *

For the third time that week, Stan nearly shot Mabel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, children, is why we don't startle trigger-happy people who are used to having their lives threatened on a regular basis.


	31. Sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made

Mabel hadn’t felt like trying to fall asleep, so instead she’d busied herself finishing up the sweaters for her grunkles in between keeping an eye on her brother. She couldn’t help a tiny pleased thrill as she noted how well the colors went together, and that her surreptitious measurements of her grunkles had been precise enough that they would probably be able to wear these masterpieces for years to come.

She was just finishing up the sleeves on Stan’s, when she noticed her hands. Mabel gulped, and took a look at Dipper’s to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She wasn’t.

Despite her hopes, it looked like things were finally coming to an end.

Mabel sighed in resignation, but then leaned over to wake up her brother.

“Dipper? Hey, Dipper! Wake up, Dip-Dop!” She gently shook his shoulder until he opened his eyes groggily.

“Uh-wha-?”

“Sorry, but they’re finally talking to each other. We gotta go say goodbye.”

“Wh-who?”

“Stan and Ford. Our grunkles. We went back in time to help them, remember?” Mabel hoped that he’d remember enough to not think that she’d lost her mind, or that he was hallucinating.

Dipper gave a little confused frown, and looked down at the blankets-and noticed his hands too.

“What the-”

“That’s why we gotta go now. C’mon.”

Mabel got off the bed, and helped Dipper sit up, before gently guiding him into a standing position. With a somewhat regretful sigh she folded the sweaters, leaving them on the bed, and then pulled Dipper’s arm over her shoulder and began guiding him towards the stairs.

“...Spaceship,” Dipper realized aloud as they did the world’s most dangerous three-legged race towards the first floor. “Ford and I...went to explore the spaceship.” The word ‘explore’ was all mangled up when he tried to say it, like he was chewing a big wad of gum at the same time.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

He made a face. “Jerk nearly got himself killed...cuz he wouldn’ drop his-journal.”

Mabel wasn’t sure what the full context of that was, but it definitely sounded like Ford.

Dipper’s eyes widened. “And then-then those men-”

“Stan and I got rid of them. It’s okay.” His words were a little less slurred and confused now; hopefully that was a good sign.

Not that it would matter for much longer.

Mabel looked around, and saw the light on in Stan’s room, so she steered Dipper in that direction. They arrived outside the doorway just in time to hear Stan saying, “Kinda hard ta get any decent jobs with people who  _ won’t  _ wanna hurt you if you step outta line when you don’t have an address.”

“I have an address.”

It was all Mabel could do not to squeal with joy. Grunkle Stan was finally gonna have a home! He and Ford were gonna eventually hug it out and live happily ever after and not have anymore dumb fights that would result in anyone being shoved in portals, so then they could get to know their family together and-

“Um-I-that’s-nah, I-y-you don’t really wanna-”

_ Ugh. Feels like me and Dipper have to do  _ everything _ around here to keep them from making horrible mistakes. _

Mabel produced her emergency airhorn and let it go full blast, while yelling, “TOXIC MASCULINITY ALERT!!!!”

* * *

A second later, for the third time this week, she was staring down the barrel of Stan’s gun, until he seemed to realize who she was and lowered it.

“Geez lou _ ise _ , kid, you tryna give me a heart attack?!” he demanded as he set it on a side table.

“Sorry, but I’m trying to keep you from making a terrible mistake!” She lowered the airhorn, and guided Dipper over to the final spot left on the couch, before stepping in front of it and putting her hands on her hips. “Stanley, despite what your stupid poophead dad taught you, there is  _ nothing _ wrong or weak about accepting help from someone.”

Stan looked down, and his shoulders hunched. “...I don’t have a fortune. I haven’t earned it.”

“You shouldn’t  _ have _ to!”

To Mabel’s relief, Ford looked as appalled as she was at the idea of Stan thinking he needed to  _ earn _ his way back into the family-hopefully he was realizing what a horrible thing that was for their father to say, if he hadn’t already. Even so, though, it was probably time to bring out the big guns.

“Look, Stan.” She knelt down in front of her other grunkle, almost put a hand on his knee until she remembered that would be a mistake. “If you found Ford lying on the street with a-with a broken leg or whatever, would you just leave him there cuz he hadn’t ‘earned’ your help?”

Stan cringed. “No. But he’s  _ Ford _ .”

Dipper lurched around with a growl. “An’ he’s jus’ as guilty of makin’ dumb mistakes as you are! He’s not-not as  _ special _ as everyone thinks he is!”

When Dipper saw Ford’s expression he blushed, and swayed his gaze back towards the floor.

“...Sorry, that...came out wrong. But-my point is, he’s not better’n you, Stan. Different, but not better. Definitely not  _ perfect _ .”

Stan looked at Dipper with a hint of concern. “...Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

He just tilted his head back, and snuggled into the couch with a sulky frown.

Mabel assured Stan quickly, “Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on him. And he’s right. You are allowed to get help if you need it. You don’t have to earn anything.”

“But-”

A hand touching his shoulder cut him off.

“Let’s start small, Stanley,” Ford said softly. “This room is a comfortable place to sleep-and I’ve got an air mattress somewhere we can set up so you don’t have to sleep on the couch all the time-that you are both welcome to and worthy of.” He tilted his head until his eyes met Stan’s. “Do you think you can accept that?”

_ Please say yes please say yes please say yes _

Stan’s eyes were getting all big and shiny like they did when he was trying not to have feelings. “...I guess I can try. Least until ya get sick of me.”

The last bit of nervousness in Mabel’s chest trickled away, replaced by warm, bittersweet relief.

Especially when Stan looked away from Ford, trying to collect himself-and took a look at Dipper and asked in alarm, “What the heck’s up with your hands?!”

It was a valid question, considering they were by now almost completely transparent, and the rest of his arms-including his clothes-were rapidly following suit.

Mabel’s were doing the same, inch by inch.

She gave both her grunkles a smile that attempted to be reassuring. “Hey, it’s okay. This is all part of the plan.”

“What plan?! What’s going on?!” Ford demanded.

“...There were a few complications when we finally made this time travel thingy possible. A lot of it’s science stuff I don’t really know how to explain, and Dipper can’t cuz he’s concussed, but it all boils down to this…”

* * *

**_Flashback flashback flashback flashback_ **

Their parents had been very confused when they hadn’t wanted to go back to Gravity Falls for the next summer, and wouldn’t give them a very good explanation.

But how  _ could _ they explain? How could they ever expect them to understand everything they’d gone through...or everything they’d lost? Or that the man they’d thought was Stanford Pines was now gone forever, because the  _ real _ Stanford Pines had put BILL CIPHER into the memory erasing gun instead of STANLEY PINES before pulling the trigger, thus stopping Weirdmageddon but at the cost of letting him destroy Stan’s mind, so they were forced to trap him in this one weird device Ford had found out in the multiverse?

They couldn’t  _ begin _ to explain it.

For months they’d been miserable, especially when they tried to sleep and got haunted by nightmares instead, or when Mabel would cry her eyes out staring at her scrapbook of all their adventures together. Their worried parents had tried therapist after therapist with little success, and had even tried calling the Mystery Shack for answers, but the voice on the other end of the line hadn’t been the Stan they knew; just a man who said in a hollow voice that Stan Pines was out and he didn’t know when he’d be back, before hanging up.

And then, one day, Dipper had looked at Mabel and said, “We’re going to get him back.”

It had taken every persuasive bone in their bodies to get their parents to let them go back the next summer, and “try to make things up” with Stan. And at first Ford had thought the idea was crazy and dangerous, and tried to talk them out of it.

But Dipper called McGucket and got him on their side, and then essentially told Ford that either he could help them fix this whole mess or he could go screw himself.

After some consideration, he’d agreed.

* * *

As it turned out, creating a time machine wasn’t quite as easy as building an interdimensional portal, especially without a powerful manipulative demon secretly feeding you helpful information. There were all kinds of paradoxes that needed to be taken into account and avoided, and it was imperative that the Time Police be kept from interfering at all costs-both in the past and the present. But McGucket had managed to include a special algorithm that would block the time signatures of the Pines family from being tracked by outside sources, making them harder to identify. And just in case they somehow managed to look in the right century for when the time machine had been built-well, Ford just said about that, “Leave it to me.”

Unfortunately, they were unable to go back far enough to stop Stan from breaking the perpetual motion machine, due to there being too many Time Police around that part of the country during that year. Mabel was extremely disappointed about that, since she wanted to protect him from all the horrible things that would happen otherwise, but at last they managed to find a time period that was mostly left unattended by the Time Police, and where Stan wouldn’t have been forced to experience the most terrible things yet: jail in Colombia, being locked in the trunk of a car, etc., and also when Ford had not summoned Bill, or even become aware of his existence. It was practically perfect.

There were only two caveats, McGucket warned as he set up the machine (far bigger and requiring a lot more power than the simple time tape used by the professionals). For one thing, he didn’t know if he’d be able to get them back if anything happened, due to the amount of power this thing consumed per use, so they’d basically be stranded in the 1970’s. And for another thing...there was at least one paradox he hadn’t been able to avoid. Namely that if their family’s past was going to be this radically changed…they would cease to exist as they currently were.

Dipper had hesitated, and looked for a moment at the key around his neck with a wistful frown. But then, more resolutely, he had taken his sister’s hand, and they’d walked through the portal into the unknown.

**_End of flashback end of flashback end of flashback end of flashback_ **

* * *

“...So, what, you guys are  _ dying _ ?!” Stan spluttered.

“No, we’re not  _ dying _ , exactly!” Mabel argued. “We’re just-ceasing to exist!” Her legs were fading too now.

“That’s literally what dying means!”

Ford looked equally distraught, instead of as fascinated as she half thought he’d be. “But-is there anything we can-”

Dipper put a hand on his arm; it only felt like half a normal touch, the rest feeling a bit like a warm summer wind. “...‘S okay. You’ll see us again, someday.”

“We just...won’t be quite the  _ same _ us.” Mabel gave them a weak smile. “Or remember any of this. But we’ll still love both of you so much, and I’m probably gonna talk your ears off and spend a lot of time chasing a cute boy every week-”

“No...spoilers,” Dipper scolded half-heartedly.

Mabel couldn’t help herself; she reached out and grabbed all of them as best she could, pulling them into a hug.

The last thing she felt was Stan’s arm cradling her against him, and warm dampness spreading across her shoulder.

* * *

**_Flash forward flash forward flash forward flash forward_ **

Bill cackled as he raced ahead of Ford; Time Toddler had got tired of watching them fight each other, and set up a very simple race. Whoever could reach the time wish first would win Globnar once and for all.

“What’s the matter, IQ? Feelin’ kinda slow?” he taunted over his shoulder.

Since Stanford was currently freeing his leg from the bear trap Bill had shoved him into, it was a low blow indeed.

Bill laughed again, and turned back towards the golden globe waiting for him at the other end of the field-when he noticed that something was off about his hands.

“Hey, what-what the hey?” He looked around in confusion, wondering if this was some new kind of booby trap the field had set up-and then noticed that his legs were turning all pale and weird now too.

“Hey, Time Tot, what’s the gag?!” Bill yelled towards the mammoth infant in the stands-and then stopped short when he heard Stanford chuckling behind him.

“It’s nothing to do with him, Bill,” Stanford said softly, as he finally yanked the trap open, and staggered towards his enemy. Bill’s wide yellow eyes registered that his limbs were starting to fade as well, even the one that was drenched with blood. “It’s because the timeline is changing.”

“What-WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Bill lunged for him, but the attack had no effect, as his limbs were rapidly losing their strength.

“I knew that when I got caught by the Time Police, they would probably search me and let you out. And if you got any inkling of what we were doing because you’d leave Stanley’s body, you would do anything you could to stop it from happening.” Stanford’s eyes contained the slight manic glint of a man who has been planning this moment for years. “But I knew that if you had a chance to rub it in my face how much you’d taken away from me, or if you thought you could have revenge on me and start Weirdmageddon up again in my dimension, you’d focus all your attention in tormenting me. And you know what, Bill? It worked like a charm.”

They were fading far more quickly than Dipper and Mabel, because the changes in their timeline were more closely linked to who they were.

Stanford grinned in dark triumph. “And perhaps it was petty of me, but I wanted you to see that you will never have the chance to get into my dimension, or corrupt me or my family, again. You. Lost.”

The demon shrieked in primal rage, tried once again to inflict pain on him even as the rest of his host body began to dissipate into nothingness. Stanford just wrapped his arms around what remained of his brother and held on tight just as the yellow light faded from his eyes because the coward had escaped while he still could, even as he heard confused yelling from the stands and the sounds of Time Police coming onto the field to see what was going on, heard Time Toddler yelling something he wasn’t interested in listening to.

Stanford closed his eyes-

* * *

-And the tapestry of time finished unwinding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Will the promise of an epilogue assuage your wrath somewhat?
> 
> *Nonchalantly putting bulletproof glass in all my windows and covering the doors in barbed wire*


End file.
